Physicists Create a Working Transistor From a Single Atom

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Physicists Create a Working Transistor From a Single Atom

Posted by samzenpus on Sunday February 19, 2012 @10:31AM from the tiny-hardware dept.

stupendou writes "Australian and American physicists have built a working transistor from a single phosphorus atom embedded in a silicon crystal. The group of physicists, based at the University of New South Wales and Purdue University, said they had laid the groundwork for a futuristic quantum computer that might one day function in a nanoscale world and would be orders of magnitude smaller and quicker than today's silicon-based machines."

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Finally, a computer so small... by MrEricSir · 2012-02-19 10:36 · Score: 4, Funny

...it will slip between the fibers on your pocket, fall on the floor, get vacuumed up and get accidentally thrown away.
The future is here.

--
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
1. Re:Finally, a computer so small... by viperidaenz · 2012-02-19 10:58 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  Until a software bug causes it to kill everything but cancer and you turn into nothing but a huge tumor.
2. Re:Finally, a computer so small... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-19 11:05 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  "I always mess up some mundane detail"
A transistor made of a single atom? by cold+fjord · 2012-02-19 10:38 · Score: 1, Funny

Good luck trying to mass manufacture those.

--
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
1. Re:A transistor made of a single atom? by TheInternetGuy · 2012-02-19 14:54 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  Ten years from now, who's to say we won't be able to mass produce them?
  A little known fact about Moores law. People usually don't know this, but Moores law is actually an inverted bell curve, so a few years from now, circuits will actually start to grow bigger and bigger every year. In the future we will have computers as big as mt to perform the simplest tasks. Unfortunately the bottom of this bell curve occurs at the same time as the end of the Mayan calendar, so not to many people will be around to worry about it.
  
  --
  If my comment didn't sound as good in your head as it did in mine, then I guess we all know who's to blame
Re:Radiation hardening by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-19 10:58 · Score: 2, Funny

You can always count on Bit to give you a straight answer. Yes siree Bob!
Re:The Raspberry Pi? by jo_ham · 2012-02-19 11:05 · Score: 3, Funny

They're stopping at 22/7 sales.
I told them they were being irrational, but there's no stopping them.
Too small by thoughtspace · 2012-02-19 11:19 · Score: 3, Funny

I want steam based computing. Big things lots of spinning wheels and whistles.
Down with this mamby-pamby micro electronics.
1. Re:Too small by c0lo · 2012-02-19 13:16 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  I want steam based computing. Big things lots of spinning wheels and whistles. Down with this mamby-pamby micro electronics.
  Just be careful with overclocking.
  
  --
  Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
OK, I'll Byte... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-19 11:42 · Score: 2, Funny

Which will be the in and which the out and which the gate?
Electron in, Proton out and Neutron the control? Neutron in, Proton out and Electron gate? Proton in, Electron out and Neutron the gate?
Will we be able to switch them around for different applications?
E-P-N for algebraic computation, for example, N-P-E for reverse polish, maybe P-E-N for secure applications (or word-processing)?
And if these trans-atom transistors are installed in quantum applications, will there be E=NP problems?