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Single-Atom Transistor

Posted by timothy on from the nano-nano dept.

Acid-F1ux writes: "Using a single cobalt atom as a switch, a research team at Cornell University has demonstrated a working transistor only 1.3 nanometers in length. Silicon transistors today are generally more than 100 nm long." We posted a slightly more general article about nanotransistors recently, too; this one concentrates on the Cornell researchers.

1 of 13 comments (clear)

  1. "Single atom" is misleading by Wayne+Hoxsie · · Score: 3, Informative

    After reading the article, it seems that this is a complex of silicon, gold, hydrocarbons, etc. all combined into a system that can manipulate and detect a state change in a single cobalt atom. While a major accomplishment (previously quite a bit more stuff was needed to manipulate and detect single atom state changes) I would hardly call it a single atom transistor.