Karlsruhe Team Develops First Single-Atom Transistor

DooKey

DooKey

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Physicists at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology have developed the smallest transistor in the world. This transistor switches the position of a single atom to control current flow. What's really amazing about this new technology is it doesn't require semiconductors to operate and can even switch at room temperatures. Of course it isn't ready for prime time yet, but they've shown that this technology is possible and this bodes well for the computing future. Can I haz quantum computer?

The single-atom transistor is based on an entirely new technical approach. The transistor exclusively consists of metal, no semiconductors are used. This results in extremely low electric voltages and, hence, an extremely low energy consumption. So far, KIT’s singleatom transistor has applied a liquid electrolyte. Now, Thomas Schimmel and his team have designed a transistor that works in a solid electrolyte.
 
I really doubt it needs only 1 atom. You'll need many atoms to at least determine if it's on or off.
 
DukenukemX said:
I really doubt it needs only 1 atom. You'll need many atoms to at least determine if it's on or off.
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As I understand it the transistor gate is one atom. I'm no physicist, but I would imagine it would require a fair bit of redundancy to make up for quantum fluctuations or be cooled to near absolute zero.

Personally, I think that until we either scale the lasers used to cool atoms down to being able to efficiently cool trillions of gateways in over the space of a CPU or finally get fusion power fired up effectively to go full Tool Time on it, things are gonna start stagnating very soon.
 
DNMock said:
As I understand it the transistor gate is one atom. I'm no physicist, but I would imagine it would require a fair bit of redundancy to make up for quantum fluctuations or be cooled to near absolute zero.
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Runs at room temp as well as near absolute zero.

the single-atom transistor does not only work at extremely low temperatures near absolute zero, i.e.-273°C, but already at room temperature.
 
panhead said:
Runs at room temp as well as near absolute zero.

the single-atom transistor does not only work at extremely low temperatures near absolute zero, i.e.-273°C, but already at room temperature.
Click to expand...

Again, not a physicist, so help me out here if you can. Wouldn't the likelyhood of an electron bypassing the gate all together by quantum tunneling be common enough that it would result in a lot of computational errors without multiple layers of redundancy? To my knowledge approaching absolute zero is the only way to mitigate quantum tunneling.

I'm asking, I have no clue for sure.
 
DNMock said:
Again, not a physicist, so help me out here if you can. Wouldn't the likelyhood of an electron bypassing the gate all together by quantum tunneling be common enough that it would result in a lot of computational errors without multiple layers of redundancy? To my knowledge approaching absolute zero is the only way to mitigate quantum tunneling.
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Although I am not quantum physicist, I am an electrical engineer. Quantum tunneling as it relates to transistors is due to the semiconductor manufacturing process. Transistors are formed on some type of semiconductor material, usually silicon, where the material is doped to create energy barriers. The gate applies a voltage which changes the barrier (resistance) and allows electrons to flow. When the transistor gets too small, electrons can jump when the gate is "off", hence leakage. The reason for this is although a transistor is off the circuit is still on and doping is not an exact process and silicon itself is a semiconductor. There is still a channel effect, although very small, allowing current to flow.

In the article for this new transistor it says this isn't a semiconductor transistor, it's a transistor formed by making the drain and source of the transistor out of just metal where the physical gap between the drain and source is the width of 1 silver atom. In this case there isn't a semiconductor material with some doping in the gate area, it's an actual empty region with nothing to allow for the electron to move from the source to drain. When they apply the voltage to move their single gate atom to fill the gap, then electrons can flow compared to a traditional transistor that needs a large gap to prevent unwanted current (leakage). Also related is what the article is referring to when it says this transistor enables switching energies smaller than those of conventional silicon technologies by a factor of 10,000 = moving a single atom to bridge the gap between two electrodes requires much much less power compared to the voltage needed to change the resistance on a FET's channel to allow more current to flow.

What's not so clear from the wording, but is more apparent from the picture, is that they aren't filling this gap with a single electron. The gap width is a single electron. Although the article says they are moving a single atom in and out, the gloop of stuff bridging those two electrodes is the special sauce they developed for this technology which is basically an electromechanical silver gel. When they apply the voltage using that wire going into the gel they push (or pull) multiple silver atoms in that gel into that single atom-width gap to bridge it and allow current to flow through the 2 pads.

To make this market feasible they have to be able to form drain and source terminals that are single atom widths and then be able to manufacture that special gel and apply it in a volume of a few atoms across a single atom gap circuit...this is the hard part although it is already developed based on room temperature operation.
 
Xrave said:
Although I am not quantum physicist, I am an electrical engineer. Quantum tunneling as it relates to transistors is due to the semiconductor manufacturing process. Transistors are formed on some type of semiconductor material, usually silicon, where the material is doped to create energy barriers. The gate applies a voltage which changes the barrier (resistance) and allows electrons to flow. When the transistor gets too small, electrons can jump when the gate is "off", hence leakage. The reason for this is although a transistor is off the circuit is still on and doping is not an exact process and silicon itself is a semiconductor. There is still a channel effect, although very small, allowing current to flow.

In the article for this new transistor it says this isn't a semiconductor transistor, it's a transistor formed by making the drain and source of the transistor out of just metal where the physical gap between the drain and source is the width of 1 silver atom. In this case there isn't a semiconductor material with some doping in the gate area, it's an actual empty region with nothing to allow for the electron to move from the source to drain. When they apply the voltage to move their single gate atom to fill the gap, then electrons can flow compared to a traditional transistor that needs a large gap to prevent unwanted current (leakage). Also related is what the article is referring to when it says this transistor enables switching energies smaller than those of conventional silicon technologies by a factor of 10,000 = moving a single atom to bridge the gap between two electrodes requires much much less power compared to the voltage needed to change the resistance on a FET's channel to allow more current to flow.

What's not so clear from the wording, but is more apparent from the picture, is that they aren't filling this gap with a single electron. The gap width is a single electron. Although the article says they are moving a single atom in and out, the gloop of stuff bridging those two electrodes is the special sauce they developed for this technology which is basically an electromechanical silver gel. When they apply the voltage using that wire going into the gel they push (or pull) multiple silver atoms in that gel into that single atom-width gap to bridge it and allow current to flow through the 2 pads.

To make this market feasible they have to be able to form drain and source terminals that are single atom widths and then be able to manufacture that special gel and apply it in a volume of a few atoms across a single atom gap circuit...this is the hard part although it is already developed based on room temperature operation.
Click to expand...


Haven't heard of "drain". Do you mean sink?
 
_l_ said:
yes, of coarse o_O



For a field-effect transistor, the terminals are labeled gate, source, and drain.
The SINK is what's used to remove heat from the transistor body ... no Drain-O required
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Xrave said:
MOSFETs have 3 terminals: drain, source, and gate
BJTs have 3 terminals: emitter, collector, and base
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Was referring to sinking and sourcing inputs, which is what I thought xrave was referring to, because I'm exhausted and crosseyed

Only transistors I deal with are IGBT
 
I'd buy that for a dollar! (Then remembers how many transistors are in a single CPU.)
 
For some reason I pictured one of these with billions of tiny atoms rolling about and thought "what happens if you shake it?"
s-l400.jpg
 
Why are people bringing up quantum computing? This has nothing to do with the number of "states" increasing. It is still a binary transistor with either a 0 or 1 state. This really does nothing to further the state of quantum computing, which will happen when we can have a 0,1,2...~ state as opposed to just being limited to 0s and 1s.

atom said:
I wish you guys would just leave me out of this.
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Hahahah
 
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