Researchers Create Single-Atom Transistor
A report from the University of New South Wales provides reason to believe that Moore's Law has plenty of time left.
UNSW physicists were able to use a single phosphorus atom as a transistor that was placed between "atomic-scale electrodes and electrostatic control gates". To exactly position atoms on a chip is a critical ability to build quantum computers, the scientists said.
The team used a scanning tunnelling microscope to monitor and move atoms on the surface of a silicon crystal that was put in an ultra-high vacuum chamber. The phosphorus atoms were positioned via a lithography process and then covered with a non-reactive layer of hydrogen. The researchers then removed the hydrogen atoms in specific locations using the microscope tip. The placement of the phosphorus atoms on the silicon surface was achieved via a chemical reaction. The researchers completed the transistor with a silicon layer and "alignment markers" that enabled them to apply an electrical charge.
The researchers said that the "electronic properties of the device were in excellent agreement with theoretical predictions for a single phosphorus atom transistor."
So far, it has not been possible to target a specific location and position an atom in that specific spot. "This device is perfect", said Michelle Simmons, group leader and director of the ARC Centre for Quantum Computation and Communication at UNSW. "This is the first time anyone has shown control of a single atom in a substrate with this level of precise accuracy." Previously scientists hoped that an atom would be present in the location they needed it.
Intel will be rolling out processors built in 22 nm this year. Transistors that reach an atom level are expected to be built in the 2020 time frame.
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Now THIS is something that will really pump up the GFLOPs =D
so whats after this then?
electron transistors?
How possible with 1 atom. I think in few 5-10 years a single chip will contain 10s of trillions of transistors.
Wow, think about it for a second..
We are building things out of ATOMS.. ATOMS!!
You serious? I mean sure we have carbon nanotubes and stuff but just wow.
And soon computers transistors may even be based on single Atoms?
I think we are advancing pretty damn fast, I mean we took over this planet and affected it in multiple ways, carve parts of it to our liking..
ARGH it's just insane.. >.< Humans are too powerful.
Wow, think about it for a second..We are building things out of ATOMS.. ATOMS!!You serious? I mean sure we have carbon nanotubes and stuff but just wow.And soon computers transistors may even be based on single Atoms?I think we are advancing pretty damn fast, I mean we took over this planet and affected it in multiple ways, carve parts of it to our liking..ARGH it's just insane.. >.< Humans are too powerful.
oh just wait until they decide to play fallout IRL
Humans are too powerful.
With great power comes great responsibility...
So when is apple going to sue for stealing their invention?
Arthur C Clarke wrote in the book 3001 that the race that invented the Monolith had found a way to store information by manipulating the fabric of space
...
At this rate we won't have to wait a thousand years for that to happen for real
thats around 100x smaller than intels trigate transistors. Imagine the speed!
also now that this is possible I fear well hit a wall in tech dev in the next 2 decades.
software is equaly important as hardware.
look at why AMD is falling behind in CPU, also they are gradualy loosing to nvidia in terms of features.
we need good software for good hardware.... bulldozer, was fail. dont know if its fixed yet nor do i care, I wont buy such a POS underperforming cpu.
point is hardware goes only sofar, software also needs to step in to make a great difference.
We are just paving the road for our machine overlords to walk on.
End of the road for Moore's law...
And what will the rest of the human race do with these quantum computers? Yes, use them to update their Facebook status!
So it will be Intel Atom 2.0?
We are just paving the road for our machine overlords to walk on.
I, for one, welcome our new machine overlords
You forgot to mention that it was created with the help of Purdue University and the University of Melbourne....
Boiler Up!
We are just paving the road for our machine overlords to walk on.
I too welcome our new machine overlords.
"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?
Hmmm...getting more advanced to make atoms slaves of humans :-P ....Salute to makers of this and if we do enough advances ,we might start using only quarks as processors :-) CEO & Founder @Koenizsegg Corporation!http://www.koenizsegg.co.cc
you are the Christian von Koenigsegg ehh?
This is no news. We already have "Atom" processors. Yours sincerely Mr Sarcasm
" We did it boys!! We created an atom-scale processor!! We shall call it the Atom Processor...oh wait... AAAAAAARRGH friggin' intel ^#$%&#$ trademarks 38#^$*^$#&!!!!!!"
" We did it boys!! We created an atom-scale processor!! We shall call it the Atom Processor...oh wait... AAAAAAARRGH friggin' intel ^#$%&#$ trademarks 38#^$*^$#&!!!!!!"
They could always call it the 2.21 Angstrom, doesn't roll off the tongue as easy but at least it's accurate
So when is apple going to sue for stealing their invention?
I'm surprised they haven't sued Intel yet for naming their products as "Core" , oh wait, Apple are just Intel clones, nevermind.
so whats after this then?electron transistors?
no! Dual and Quad Atoms branded by Intel! Marketing Geniuses will convince the populace that 4 Atoms (already capable of computing any mathematical algorithm instantly) will open email windows faster than ever.
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.
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.
so whats after this then?electron transistors?
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.
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...
"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?
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.
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.
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
We are just paving the road for our machine overlords to walk on.
i welcome the machine overlords over our current politicians -.-