Slashdot Mirror
Single Molecule Transistor A Reality
Petersko writes "A team from the University of Alberta has proven for the first time that a single molecule can switch electrical currents off and on, a puzzle that scientists worldwide have been trying to crack for decades. The finding could revolutionize the field of electronics, providing a leap ahead for everything from computers to batteries to medical equipment."
OMG no way!?!? one molecule!?!? thats lyk my brain !!!
~Angelic Carrie~
That's freaking sweet, but how long until we see this filtering into usable technology?
If you cannot keep politics out of your moderation remove yourself from the Mod Lottery.. NOW!
I have to wonder how reliable is a 1 molecule switch.
;)
Doesn't sound like much room for wear and tear
Also read about it at the University of Alberta website and in the Press release
They had a biochemist, bioengineer, and a different type of biochemist. Their discover has litteraly millions of applications - everything from turning electrical currents on to turning electrical currents off.
What happens if you DROP THE DAMN THING?! Does it bond with other molecules, becoming like a super-hydrogen molecule or something?
Be afraid, people...be very afraid. This tiny new world that is being ushered in will conspire to break into peoples houses and wreck up the place!
"How like you to drag your keyboard to a gun fight." - Aaron Bedard (BANE)
I'm wondering what might happen if some bacteria decides to come around and injest this single molecule? True, the bacteria would probably get a bad case of indigestion, but there are some pretty nasty enzymes in bacteria that are good at breaking down molecules.
Imagine a beowulf cluster...oh, wait, that's just a computer.
"Not only that, but because the microelectronics could eventually be made out of molecules, some computer parts could be biodegradable since molecules can be broken down into small bits." Apparently we've all been using those computers that are made from something besides molecules... On a serious note though, how a chip made with this tech be any more biodegradable than current tech?
It seems if it were a C8H10N4O2 molecule it would switch much faster.
What a bunch of hosers, eh.
It's too bad wire technology hasn't improved to this point. Aren't the currently smallest wires carbon nanotubes? If so, that may provide a problem when hooking these transistors up.
Unless of course I'm an idiot (that's a distinct possibility) and they've thought of an even better way to transport electrons.
on my new super reliable built in redundancy 2 molecule switch, soon I shall be rich beyond my wildest drea.., shit where did I put it on the table again....
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
Moore's law wins again! Well, probably.
Also see the article in Nature.
i wonder if this has any worthy implications for quantum computers.. doesnt the human brain have similarly sized switches?
This is a great achievement, a real milestone in the progress of computing.
There's also another research team out in california, studying whether or not slashdot editors are capable of posting a story without simply recopying the first couple lines of the article verbatim. Unfortunately, there has been no progress, and it's believed that they may be working towards a dead end.
What's the grease. Is it KY, Astroglide, vaseline? MAybe a generic brand?
....how are they going to interconnect them? Won't the obligatory interconnect material re-dope the "junction" or alter the molecule behavior?
Cloned foods give the statement "We had that last week!" a whole new meaning.
Whooo! Yeah! Rock on! Go UofA!!! Oh, wait, is my Alumni pride supposed to be limited to sporting events? Also, UofC sucks.
Still I think this is very interesting news. This is very early research. The speed will probably be improved, and the smaller dimensions of single-molecyle transistors can give space for more hardware to compensate for the speed.
I urge all of my fellow comrades to contact Richard Stallman and the FSF for immediate action.
We can not trust these Canadians to turn these molecules proprietary or things might turn out like in the documentary Canadian Bacon.
And of course, they'll be patenting the device in the name of the Canadian people, whose taxes paid for their research, and whose taxes will be lowered a little by licensing it for the next century, right?
--
make install -not war
I've been doing that for years. I just flip the plastic light switch on my wall, the single polymer molecule in the plastic switch knob seems to turn the lights on and off quite nicely.
Until they can make circuits with traces that are only a few hundred or few thousand atoms long, I doubt this molecular switch will be of much use. The capacitance of long interconnecting traces will mean that it will take too long for a switched signal to propagate to the next gate.
Making a small switch is a great first step. The trick will be to make an entire circuit on this atomic scale so that the switch is matched to the load it must drive.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
DIGITAL RIGHTS MANAGEMENT ... WASHINGTON - The Recording Industry Association of
America (RIAA) and the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) have underwritten research into Prions. In a jointly released statement the organizations spoke to a new era in DRM technology that would see attempts to copy works invite the equivalent of Mad Cow Disease in Molecular Transistors.
vaseline is petrolium jelly, not grease, you MORON!
From TFA:
such a sensor might be able to detect certain molecules that indicate a malady in someone. If the molecules are present, a tiny light might blink on, Wolkow said.
So now I get to have a mysterious "check engine" light that won't go off, to match the misery that is my car. sigh.
One molecule? Geez, aren't there infinitely many molecules in the known universe? Must we be so ultra conservative?
I dub thee Trolldor, of the land of Troll.
Though thy technique lacks elegance, I see in thy posts the beginning of something GRAND.
Rise a Trollknight and spread thy trolly seed!
These are going to be some really little radios they make outta these transistors.
You thought the current cell phones were small, you ain't seen nothing yet. These new little buggers you just drop in your ear and they're gone.
Still, it will be kinda cool, pointing to empty air and saying "We had almost completed your new computer order, but then that darn gnat showed up. Look at it now! Molecules all over the place!"
fifth sigma, inc.
I believe that's the molecular structure for caffeine.
James Tiberius Kirk: "Spock, the women on your planet are logical. No other planet in the galaxy can make that claim."
This despite the fact that the human brain is biodegradable.
How long did the last PC you owned last?
Finally, we did something important. (I'm just kidding)
Does a Beowulf cluster of these molecules run Linux in the post-9/11 world?
...and if not, will the terrorists of Soviet Russia defeat YOU?
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
He says laptops would run for weeks, even months on batteries available today. That'd be the case if the processor and memory were the only electricity sinks.
What about backlit LCDs, HDs and DVDs?
Also, all throughout the interview he comes across as incredibly full of himself. Hardly the attitude you'd expect from a groundbreaking scientist.
So efficient is this potential new technology, said Wolkow, that "the question now about the battery life in your laptop would go away. Your battery today would run your computer all week or all month instead of three to four hours."
Of course, by the time we *can* build CPUs with this technology, we'll be able to build the equivalent of your current laptop into a watch or a cellphone - and the new generation of molecular-CPU laptops will be the same size, massively more powerful, and run for three to four hours. Doh.
Not only that, but because the microelectronics could eventually be made out of molecules, some computer parts could be biodegradable since molecules can be broken down into small bits.
"Made out of molecules"? What do you think they're made out of now? Rainbows and unicorns?
That said, this is damn cool. Miniturization is unstoppable! (At least until these molecular transistors become used in everything - I'm not quite sure where we'll go from there.)
Breaking Into the Industry - A development log about starting a game studio.
i see all these artsy fartsy new tech improvements... but when will i see them in my next PC that i buy?
"Because we achieved the switching with one electron -- instead of a million electrons as in today's smallest, fastest transistors -- we have the expectation that we can run these things with a million times less power. Imagine the power savings, and it takes less time."
So, is this just like an "in theory" type statement or what?
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
...it's not combined with C12H19Cl3O8 or C14H18N2O5, it would probably work.
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
Don't click on the link if you have javascript enabled.
How come the United States allows such obvious patents to be filed? This "invention" of is totally obvious. Vaccuum tubes were around long before these guys came around. If they patent this, then companies like Intel and AMD might be sued for patent infringement. This will totally stifle innovation. The Constitution only allows Congress to pass laws to promote art and science. Thus, the patent system is not only broken, it's unconstitutional!
...will the damn computer itself stop responding from the impact?!? I mean, we might be running Web sites or keeping books (both accounts and literature) with software that uses chips with these things. Still, it's quite frightening.
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
Anyone else notice the far-reaching and seemingly completely unrelated claims in the article?
Not only that, but because the microelectronics could eventually be made out of molecules, some computer parts could be biodegradable since molecules can be broken down into small bits.
The CPU represents a very small part of the computer disposal problem. These CPUs would be "one millionth" the size of current CPUs, so their biodegradability is even less important. Even so, if these computers would be 1 million times faster than today's computers, and assuming they cannot be made faster or smaller (because they are already down to single molecules), then each CPU should be designed to last forever - NOT to degrade. That is the best way to recycle - creating something indestructible that can always be reused for its original purpose. For some reason a "biodegradable CPU" just doesn't sound like it would last too long to me.
Building such a computer would be wildly complex and long distant, since computers have millions of tiny transistors inside them. Wolkow said it's more likely the new technology could be used sooner in fairly simple medical diagnostic sensors, perhaps carried around by doctors.
Now where the heck did that come from? How does this smaller transistor size lend itself to medical diagnostic equipment? Are they talking about nanobots that travel inside a patient? That certainly isn't a "fairly simple" thing.
Dan East
Better known as 318230.
I can't help but think that in 20 years or so that we'll be able to use the latest design inkjet printers, pop special 'inks' in them, load in IC plans into Photoshop IC, hit print and 2 hours later have usable expansion cards for our computers (sans power connectors). Need more memory or replace bad sticks? Just download the plans for your particular machine and away you go. Wonder how much that is going to cost for the IC plans? Or better yet, what about those evil _hacker_ people who design and release IC plans onto the Internet for free?!? Are they nuts? (sarcasm)
It's coming. Oh boy, then manufacturer's are going to be fighting for their way of survival just like the **AA of today. Fun fun fun!
...so our processors should get high from speed. Interesting theory.
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
In Soviet Canada, Intellectual Property licences YOU!
Frylock: "We should have cloned twenties, Jackson wouldn't have given a fuck."
OH im only 14 but ur really nice! omg did u see wut that other guy said dat replied to my post ? he said to never post again :( :( *Cries* im sorry whoever u r!!
~Angelic Carrie~
I'm a overweight 56 year old engineer with hairy back and legs. I still manage to look good in a mini skirt though and I have a little surprise for you if you get my drift. Hit me up with ur # and we'll hook up.
Hugs and Kisses,
~Angelic Carrie~
Holy shit, if this is the biggest thing, I can't wait to see their other work.
I can see the Dollar Signs rolling infront of the eyes of the board of trustees. They are going to make a mint off of this!!!!!!! Cha-Ching
Madre de Dios! Es El Pollo Diablo! -- Captain Blondebeard
Don't listen to this slanderous tripe! I hereby assert that I am a 14 year old internet grrrl. I even have a Verisign cert to prove it.
FTA: "That molecule is so tiny it can only be measured on the scale of nanometres."
A quick google tells me that 50nm transistors are in mass production (Pentium), and that 30nm have been made since Y2K with several processes. Infineon announced an 18nm carbon nanotube transistor in 11/2004.
Just how earth-shattering is this? (IANAP / IANAEE)
Finally I can put to good use all those caffeine molecules in my blood system.
"The finding could revolutionize the field of electronics, providing a leap ahead for everything from computers to batteries to medical equipment."
Or Not
i do. if a molecule of mine wants to become a transistor, i am all for it. just don't come running back when you get burnt out!
Do you have to use the de-atomizer ray gun on the molecule to remove it, then use your atomizer mist spray to replace it, and molecular re-integrator beam to reconnect it?
... man, those things are expensive ... not the ant, the single-molecule switch.
...
And what if an ant steps on it
I used to have one of them, but I lost it somewhere in one of my pockets, and now I can't seem to find it anymore. It was probably altered in a biochemical reaction with my nickel-based quarter and the pocket lint
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
vs computers in your nose tomorrow. This stuff is a great substitute for romance. Promises and thrills, followed by qualifications, followed by overcomplexification, folowed by some jerkoff in a corvette figuring a way to keep it out of your hands. The possibilities are exciting just like eight track and Betamax (and those are just a couple of media examples.) The real future is in the unexpected.
Faith: n. -- That human impulse that drives them to steal appliances when the power goes out
I'm always switched on, with the help of my handy caffeine molecule switch!
...
...
oh, you meant another type of live wire/circuit
never mind, I'll just have another cup of tea
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
"computer parts could be biodegradable"
Great... bit-rot is now real, instead of just an artifact of idiots not maintaining the contract promised by both sides of an API.
-- Terry
Great... bit-rot is now real, instead of just an artifact of idiots not maintaining the contract promised by both sides of an API.
... it will dissolve!
Not only that, but when you spill coffee on the switch, it won't just short out
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Just a dab of a nice reagant and Poof! there go the lights ...
...
Hope they remembered oxygen is moderately corrosive, especially in the presence of electric currents
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Ground up floppy disks could make good fertalizer.
I was thinking the same thing. It's great that it can "revolutionize computing as we know it", but when will it be available to the average consumer or even commercially?
So now my Pentium quad-processor cpu fits on the point of a pin. How to I attach the heatsink?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
However old you are, you're a fucking idiot.
"A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing" - Alan Perlis
This seems to be an organic molecule interfaced on silicon (Some Styrene derivative - from the paper on the researcher's site).
Organics are great because they are cheap, but the electron mobility is nowhere near that of traditional semiconductors like Silicon or Gallium Arsenide.
I think the real neat part of this is the organic-silicon interface.
Somebody more knowledgable than i am, please chime in.
but how many molecules does it take to screw in a light bulb?
"With molecule-sized transistors a single molecule can switch electrical currents off and on. If a reliable way can be found to make computer 'chips' with single-molecule transistors, then computers would offer higher data processing speeds, lower electrical consumption, and many other advantages over conventional chips, including, perhaps, the ability to create multi-core CPUs with quadrillions of cores, memory 'chips' with more data locations than a human brain has synapses, inexpensive robots more powerful than whole human societies, vast computer networks that could be unobtrusively implanted in people's brains, and that Holy Grail of computing: PDAs with an easy handwriting interface."
1) get an MS or PhD studying some exotic physical phenomenon
2) publish the results accompanied by wildly optimistic claims
3) ?
4) Profit!
> The finding could revolutionize the field of ."
> electronics, providing a leap ahead for
> everything from computers to batteries to
> medical equipment to Beowulf clusters
Golly!
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Is a seizure the analog of a bluescreen? I suppose death would be the analog of a head crash.
It's great that you read Slashdot, but when will it click in the average Slashdot reader to read TFA before posting a question that repeats the same question the parent asks, that is clearly answered in TFA?
The last line in TFA is:
Wolkow and the University of Alberta have filed for a U.S. patent on the technology.
Am I the only one who thinks that fundamental technology like this should be open to the world?
From TFA:
So I can run my old laptop through a wood chipper and use it to mulch crops because it's made up of molecules? Wow, if only we could make everything out of molecules!
Oh, I see now. A binary computer made of molecules represents its bits as either a Zero Molecule or a One Molecule. All you have to do is split each One Molecule into, say, some One-Twelfth Molecules. And since the Zero Molecules don't take up any space at all, you end up with twelve smaller laptops. Then repeat until you have laptops small enough to be used as lawn fertilizer.
About the same amount of time it will take a /. moderator to read TFA before wasting points on the parent post.
I don't want knowledge. I want certainty. - Law, David Bowie
Polymers can be infinitely long, so a single molecule of something doesn't necessarily mean that it is small.
Oh well, what the hell...
They've been making tiny switches for decades. I've got an issue of MIT Technology Review from 1990 that covers nanometer scale switches. The one I liked the best was the planar resonant tunneling field effect transistor (PRESFET).
The PRESFET is fabricated like normal FETs on ICs, so it's very compatible with the modern fabrication technology, but scaled down. They've just about reached the sizes needed to make PRESFETs (30 to 60 nm total size, 5 nm feature size). PRESFETs are also very low power, using less than 10 nanoamps with voltages of less than 0.2 volts.
Germanium is a metal, so a germanium transistor is a single molecule transistor.
Pretty much the same thing for good quality silicon wafers.
The way I look at it, we are currently using single molecule processors consisting of millions of transistors...
Oh well, what the hell...
I work in the field of molecular electronics -- I'm sorry, but this doesn't sounds "revolutionary."
It's hard to comment before I've read the article, but there are a lot of other, very reliable single-molecule transistor experiments. In 2002, Nature called it a "discovery of the year." (Sorry, can't find the URL right now.)
There have been pretty good single-molecule transistor measurements in other groups since then.
Granted, if they're able to image the single molecular wire, that's a solid advance over other techniques. But it's hardly the solution to a 20-year old puzzle.
(By the way, it's more like 30 years since it was shown how a molecule could function as a switch. The first paper on the subject was published in 1973.)
-Geoff
Let's not forget about nanotube transistors. I imagine we'll see them before molecules. In fact, I think we're pretty close.
(%i1) factor(777353);
(%o1) 777353
I'd love to see the applications this has in portable electronics, given that it will greatly reduce both power consumption and scale.
Ummm, not to spoil your fun or anything, but nanotubes are single molecules!
Just a little guy, y'know?
Erg, how embarassing...
(%i1) factor(777353);
(%o1) 777353
Well, it's 1974, not 1973. But the parent is still correct.
All these jokes about a single molecule transistor, and only one scored a 5. Dont people have a sense of humor? This stuff is gold!
This signature is part of a balanced post.
It seems to me that most of the comments this article has elicited is regarding reporter's complete lack of scientific understanding. In this forum we have large pool of knowledge (although sometimes I wonder) from which to draw, but poor suckers who read the daily rags gobble this sort of garbage up.
Things like measuring molecules in nanometres and them being bio-degradable is trainee hour and included because some hack has been given the task of appealing to the masses which justifications of why this is a good thing.
Science is a good thing, making new things is a good thing, finding a new thing IS A GOOD THING! We don't need the research justified.
"Made out of molecules"? What do you think they're made out of now? Rainbows and unicorns?
Chips aren't made out of molecules. Current semiconductors are made out of various forms of silicon crystal.
That's a lattice -- there aren't individual "silicon molecules" anywhere in there.
Just FYI.
I was working with one of their competitors at the time, when the Nature article came out. I won't link to Nature, since it's not freely available.
m epage/Publications/Thesis_JPark.pdf
m epage/pubs.html
Here's the thesis:
http://www.lassp.cornell.edu/lassp_data/mceuen/ho
(Sorry, LASSP server! I've got a point to prove.)
Here's a publication list, where several followup articles may be found:
http://www.lassp.cornell.edu/lassp_data/mceuen/ho
Incidentally, since nanotubes are molecules, single molecule transistors have existed for far longer than that.
As much as I know it's hopeless, slashdotters, please check your references before submitting articles. Being wrong is, well, wrong.
(I am also a nanoscientist.)
Actually, Stan Williams (of HP) admits that the rotaxanes have nothing to do with the switching. It's the platinum wires forming Pt and platinum oxide nanoparticles.
I don't think it's published yet, but I've heard him give several talks about that.
Nice to see another person on here trying to talk actual science.
of course the thing wouldn't be named after canada. canada is lucky i haven't nuked it yet. So shut the hell up and go back to your craphouse of a country. What has Canada ever done for the world? And another thing, Canada has a lot of french people, france sucks too. Canada might be a little bit worse than hitler. Ya, my list goes Canada, Hitler, American Idol (from worst to still terrible but not quite as bad as canada).
Kind of begs the obvious question - which molecule?
The article doesn't tell you the chemical composition of the article, which is a real bummer. If we knew that, we could work out how easy it would be to create it.
The finding could revolutionize the field of electronics, providing a leap ahead for everything from computers to batteries to medical equipment.
Too bad... If they had said it would help win the war on terror they might have gotten some future funding out of this impressive find.
Davo -- Free speech, free software, AND free beer.
I work on sort-of-related stuff in condensed matter physics, and I have skimmed through some papers about the subject, and I had the same thought as the parent (though I was too lazy to post) - that it's cool, but not quite "revolutionary" and that other groups have come up with single-molecule transistors before.
1 3073522.htm/
Here's a link describing what two groups published in Nature back in 2002 about single molecule transistors (maybe what the parent post was referring to):
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/06/0206
I briefly scanned through the Nature "News and Views" that introduces and supplies background for this recent paper (from today's Nature) and it looks like the main innovation is that the group used a different technique from earlier molecule transistors. According to that Nature article, previous groups relied on metalmoleculemetal types of molecular junctions. Apparently, these junctions have extra geometric complexity due to the metal-molecule coordination that can complicate the charge transport measurements. This group avoided the "geometric uncertainty" by using a junction on a semiconductor (silicon) instead of a metal. They apparently added a carbon atom with an unpaired electron as a 'dangling bond' on the surface of the silicon electrode to form the molecule-electrode interface. The interface is then a covalent bond, instead of the more complicated coordination bond from other molecular junctions. Anyway, that's why I gathered from a quick reading of the Nature summary article, but I don't know about the subject in much depth.
There's definitely a lot of potential with this stuff, though.
And that wheatking person... that sort of sour grapes can only be coming from Saskatchewan. How're things down there in Eyebrow, wheatking? Flat, you say? Of course. Say! Is that a new Pool cap you've got? Very flattering! Just the thing for skiing on Mt. Potash!
Oh.. and Go Dinos! And Lady Dinos! Or was that Dinettes...
Word.
Okay, fine, this is Slashdot, so we can point out there's smaller molecules, and single atoms, quark-based computers, etc.
But suddenly Moore's law needs to be updated to use quantum physics. None of this absurdly simple ratio crap anymore.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossbar_latch
"If the molecules are present, a tiny light might blink on, Wolkow said."
So can we expect a CSI episode featuring this technology to bust criminals?
You could sort of rinse away a broken computer and let bacteria eat up the remains to be composted," Wolkow said. Greeeaat!!!... Now we can have actual viruses eating up our computers... maybe even catching flu and coughing...
dword, no qword
[i]The finding could revolutionize the field of electronics, providing a leap ahead for everything from computers to batteries to medical equipment.[/i]
Or, it could be patented...
Just what is it that they intend to patent. Pure speculation but it would have to be something like "a gated switch created by the passing of a charge from one molecule to another in a contolled way" I believe nature has come up with this already.... it's like happening in every cell of your body... Just a good job that nature hasn't tried to enforce it copyright yet
so the size of the user interface will still be the same on the laptop i.e. the screen. this will still consume a considerable amount of power as will the hard disk motor. reliably detecting mechanical actuations from the keyboard using a single molecule wont be simple either.
they showed buckyballs (which are a single molecule, i think) can do this during my freshman year (1999)...
And there's not much use for a switch that small-- individual molecules arent and cant be made reliable enough. just your basic room temperature heat is enough to disrupt these things due to normal diffusion. Just one weak cosmic ray and the whole thing is toast.
think of it more as a geeky parlor trick, nothing more.
A single molecule switching electrical currents on and off was demonstrated in the seventies. Neher and Sakmann were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology for recordings from single channels in muscle cell membranes.
sans sig
A useful transistor needs gain and many proposed switches do not provide sufficient gain to be used as we now use transistors. I read TFA and found no mention of gain. Having three terminals at least provides the potential of having gain, but nothing is mentioned on its magnitude. Has anyone delved far enough into their work to tease out this item?
Never the less, it is a cool piece of work.
So efficient is this potential new technology, said Wolkow, that "the question now about the battery life in your laptop would go away. Your battery today would run your computer all week or all month instead of three to four hours."
Are we forgetting the the LCD screen is also a major consumer of power on the laptop? Unless he's assuming this technology will somehow be used for that as well.
The paper by the Canadians is nice, but (a) it's not really a transistor, since there is no gate electrode, and (b) single-molecule transistors have been done by several groups.
See:
Park et al., Nature 407, 57 (2000)
Park et al., Nature 417, 722 (2002)
Yu et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 93, 266802 (2004)
and others.
Nanotube-based transistors came before these, too, though that's a bit of a cheat since nanotubes can be microns long.
Since even the smallest silicon switch still contains at least a billion atoms/molecues, then you have at least 30 doublings of Moore's law to continue :-)
Probably quantum noise would sink long before then.
It's sad when there's 272 replies to this, and only 7 of them are modded high enough for me to see...
I don't understand why we need these newfangled transistor thingies anyway. Why, when I was your age, logic was handled using relays. Why, it took only eleven minutes for our computer, here at Building B, to add two numbers, and that includes the time it took to enter the numbers. All these newfangled transistor contraptions don't do a darn thing, I tell ya. Yes sir, I swear it, they're unnecessary.
This is hardly desktop science. They had a roomful of equipment that seemed to need a hellish amount of cooling.
It would be those damned canadians - watch out, this is the first step they are taking to dominate the world!
----------------------------
Esobofh - Currently drinking fresh mango juice.
So that means we're getting ever closer to those gel-pack computers like in most sci-fi shows? That'd be really cool to start seeing those. Maybe the imac of 2050 or 2100 will be called the iGel, and will come in seven different colors?
Carbon nanotubes are molecules, and are well known to work as transistors, even at room temperature. For instance, see these papers:
Room-temperature transistor based on a single carbon nanotube9 .pdf
S. J. Tans, A. R. M. Verschueren, and C. Dekker
Nature 393, pages 49-52 (1998)
http://www.mb.tn.tudelft.nl/publications/nat393_4
Carbon nanotubes single-electron transistors at room temperature.9 3_76.pdf
H.W.Ch. Postma, T.F. Teepen, Z. Yao, M. Grifoni, C. Dekker
In: Science 293 pages 76-79 (2001)
http://www.mb.tn.tudelft.nl/publications/science2
Disclaimer: I wrote that last paper, there are many more papers about nanotube transistors, but these are some of the most cited ones.
There are even single-atom transistors around, see
Coulomb blockade and the Kondo effect in single-atom transistors,m epage/Publications/Co-02pub.pdf
Jiwoong Park, Abhay N. Pasupathy, Jonas I. Goldsmith, Connie Chang, Yuval Yaish, Jason R. Petta, Marie Rinkoski, James P. Sethna, Hector D. Abruna, Paul L. McEuen & Daniel C. Ralph,
Nature 417, pages 722-725 (2002).
http://www.lassp.cornell.edu/lassp_data/mceuen/ho