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New Molecular Transistor Can Control Single Electrons

Posted by samzenpus on from the getting-small dept.

Eloking writes: An international team of scientists has been able to create a microscopic transistor made up of one single molecule and a number of atoms. Gizmag reports: "Researchers from Germany, Japan and the United States have managed to create a tiny, reliable transistor assembled from a single molecule and a dozen additional atoms. The transistor reportedly operates so precisely that it can control the flow of single electrons, paving the way for the next generation of nanomaterials and miniaturized electronics." The team that conducted the research included teams from the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory and the NTT Basic Research Laboratories in Japan.

5 of 46 comments (clear)

  1. Smaller than 1 electron? by wimconradie · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I wonder if a single electron ever poses a cap on progress in going smaller in technology... Although I must say time (given enough) always tends to eventually break through such limitations.

    1. Re:Smaller than 1 electron? by Antique+Geekmeister · · Score: 3, Interesting

      _Energy_ and entropy propose some profound limitations. There have been some very interesting ideas published for quantum computing, which is not necessarily binary, and could another step upwards. The ability to actually trigger a measurable change for recording equipment to read an answer is, itself, a limitation.

  2. There's that confusion again: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    "Once that number drops to single digits these transistors will become inoperable as quantum mechanics starts getting in the way, with electrons spontaneously jumping from one end of the switch to the other whether the switch is open or closed."

    Nah, the electron doesn't jump anywhere, your detection of where it is jumps. The confusion between the detection-of-something and the actual-something, again.

    The old 'flock of starlings problem', if you can only detect the flock and not the individual starling, then the flock appears to jump from place to place randomly instantaneously, and sometimes appears in two places at once. But that not the bird that's doing that, its the flock-detector.

    1. Re:There's that confusion again: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      Nah, the electron doesn't jump anywhere, your detection of where it is jumps.

      Um, when you make a perfect position measurement, the wavefunction somehow collapses to a single position eigenvector, so it *is* where you measure it, that's kind of a fundamental property of quantum mechanics that you can't just ignore. The fact that electrons absolutely do not behave like flocks of starlings is also something you can't just ignore. Stop with the naive reinterpretations. If you have a novel interpretation, it has to generate the right maths. Flocks of starlings don't do that. Sorry that QM is hard, but that's not a human failing, it's just how nature works. The human failing is denying this.

      If you're finding QM hard, try learning Newtonian mechanics properly first. No statistic of a Newtonian system jumps from value to value without passing through intervening values, and that includes whatever you consider to be the "position" of a flock of birds.

      Captcha: cringe

  3. Re:The future is going to be incredible... by NoNonAlphaCharsHere · · Score: 3, Funny

    Heh. My future had mile-high skyscrapers, colonies on the moon, atomic powered airplanes, fusion power too cheap to meter, and FLYING CARS, goddamit, FLYING FUCKING CARS!