Researchers Create Single-Atom Transistor

[Guest]

Hitting the wall in terms of scaling down may actually be somewhat beneficial. Then the focus will have to move from making things smaller to making better designs.

 

[freggo]

Why use anything with a 'mass' to compute.
Let's just use light waves instead.
We already can add and subtract waves; just need to figure out a few other basic actions next.

 

[wiyosaya]

[citation][nom]alhanelem[/nom]so whats after this then?electron transistors?[/citation]
Probably. There are people working on using the spin of an electron to demark state. Sounds like it is not an easy task, though.

There's another version of this article here along with cool video - it makes me think that they might actually be able to introduce these to the market by 2020. Many "breakthroughs" like this seem to never make it to market, but this sounds like it has a real chance of becoming a commercial product.

 

[serendipiti]

And now is when you head to the University of New South Wales just to discover an empty building while all the equipment has been taken out by the army
The good thing, is that it's process is quite similar to current semiconductors process. I know I am comparing a tunnel effect microscope to laser + masks and the extra high vacuum chamber to immersion lithography... casi nada
Also they are building transistors, after all, one of the basic blocks to build CPUs and electronic devices (so it seems that it should be easier to get an intel or amd cpu on atoms transistors). It is possible using the microscope to put an electrical charge to one transistor, but to get a CPU, you need to precisely control both voltage and amperage on all of that hundred trillion transistors on that circuit... and this seems to be a hard job to get done...

 

[mb2bm55]

[citation][nom]LaHawzel[/nom]"The researchers said that the 'electronic properties of the device were in excellent agreement with theoretical predictions for a single phosphorus atom transistor.'"How good are these theoretical predictions, anyway? Are they better than what can be expected of silicon-based transistors of a larger scale?[/citation]

Its probably a very accurate theory. Quantum mechanics at the atomic level is perhaps the most accurate theory in all of science. In dealing with only single atoms, there are even fewer factors to muck up the calculations and predictions. its probably easier to predict the behavior than for larger transistors.

 

[mb2bm55]

[citation][nom]freggo[/nom]Why use anything with a 'mass' to compute.Let's just use light waves instead.We already can add and subtract waves; just need to figure out a few other basic actions next.[/citation]

It would be nice if the creation and absorption of photons was produced by single or dual atom diodes. It would be difficult for the total mass of the system that manipulates the photons to be less than a system of single atom transistors, but then again that needs support structure too

 

[godmode]

[citation][nom]southernshark[/nom]We are just paving the road for our machine overlords to walk on.[/citation]

i welcome the machine overlords over our current politicians -.-

 

[back_by_demand]

One day researchers will identify the Higgs Bosun or "God particle", under close examination it will be a complete digital backup of all the porn on the internet

 

[okibrian]

OK, here is the part where someone says,"but can it play Crysis?".

 

[joet79]

by 2020 they actually mean in the year 3000

 

[h2_studio]

when can we make flying cars & bikes?

 

[A Bad Day]

There's a certain point when technology advances so much that to the average joe, it's magic...

 

[wba4493]

That's got to be so unstable though! And when you think about how much time and effort went in to placing just one atom, imagine how labor intensive and expensive it would be to have to place millions-billions of them individually.

 

[freggo]

[citation][nom]h2_studio[/nom]when can we make flying cars & bikes?[/citation]

We have flying car prototypes and the wright brothers used bicycle parts for their flyer.
But seriously, looking at how people drive their cars in 2 dimensions, would you really want them in the cockpit of anything that moves in 3 dimensions ?