Smallest Transistor in the World

Ant wrote to tell us of a story on BBC's Web site about the world's smallest transistor. The Vertical Transistor uses the thickness of a precisely-controlled layer of material, rather than light, to set the gate size, which makes for smaller circuits. With many scientists of the opinion that current transistor technology will hit a brick wall of physics soon, the vertical transistor offers a new way to get greater processing power.

Comments

Re:*cough*

[orangesquid]

I built a liquid transistor once... the recipe was the following:
3 jars
lemon juice
water
salt
copper wire
aluminum foil
I used the copper wire tips and aluminum foil pieces as electrodes. I put saltwater in the center jar and lemon juice in the left and right jars. The emitter was a copper electrode in the right jar. There was a wire running from an aluminum electrode in the right jar to a copper electrode in the middle jar. The base was a copper electrode in the middle jar. There was another copper electrode in the middle jar attached to an aluminum electrode in the left jar. The collector was a copper electrode in the left jar.
I figured using different electrodes in such substances should create diode-like behavior - especially because copper+aluminum+electrolye=very sucky battery.
After connecting a voltage supply across the emitter and base (positive on emitter I think), I connected another voltage supply's positive (I think) to emitter and put an ohmmeter between the collector and that supply's negative (methinks). I noted the resistance. I then removed the first voltage supply, and noted the resistance again. Not much different.
I swapped the polarity of the voltage supplies and repeated the experiment. 70k ohms when the supply was connected, 120k when it wasn't.
Woohoo! I had a cheap, ineffective giant liquid transistor. Completely impractical ;-)
The only problem with such liquid transistors (besides them being not very efficient): the liquids tend to pick up fun little things like fungi. I had the three jars (still full) in a box in my basement a little while ago... One day, as I was cleaning up, I looked in the box... ewww...
Yet again, another nearly completely useless device pioneered by the infamous Matt Williams ;-)
If anyone repeats the experiment with even a small bit of success (try substituting other metals - it might make it more effective) please e-mail me at orangesquid@hotmail.com - I'd love to hear about it.

--theorangesquid