Oh no, you're thinking, yet another cookie pop-up. Well, sorry, it's the law. We measure how many people read us, and ensure you see relevant ads, by storing cookies on your device. If you're cool with that, hit “Accept all Cookies”. For more info and to customize your settings, hit “Customize Settings”.

Review and manage your consent

Here's an overview of our use of cookies, similar technologies and how to manage them. You can also change your choices at any time, by hitting the “Your Consent Options” link on the site's footer.

Manage Cookie Preferences
  • These cookies are strictly necessary so that you can navigate the site as normal and use all features. Without these cookies we cannot provide you with the service that you expect.

  • These cookies are used to make advertising messages more relevant to you. They perform functions like preventing the same ad from continuously reappearing, ensuring that ads are properly displayed for advertisers, and in some cases selecting advertisements that are based on your interests.

  • These cookies collect information in aggregate form to help us understand how our websites are being used. They allow us to count visits and traffic sources so that we can measure and improve the performance of our sites. If people say no to these cookies, we do not know how many people have visited and we cannot monitor performance.

See also our Cookie policy and Privacy policy.

This article is more than 1 year old

Much more Moore's Law, as boffins assemble atom-level transistor

We laugh at your puny 10nm process

The end times for Moore's Law aren't quite at hand, but we now know what the silicon-killer might look like: single-molecule transistors that can switch at the single electron level.

That's what a multinational team of boffins working with the US Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) say they've created.

The transistor consists of a single molecule of phthalocyanine (a carbon/hydrogen/nitrogen compound) surrounded by 12 positively-charged iridium atoms, on an indium-arsenic substrate.

Project leader Dr Stefan Fölsch of the Paul-Drude-Institut für Festkörperelektronik explains the operation of the transistor in the NRL's media release.

"The molecule is only weakly bound to the InAs template. So, when we bring the STM [scanning tunnelling microscope] tip very close to the molecule and apply a bias voltage to the tip-sample junction, single electrons can tunnel between template and tip."

Electrons travel by hopping between molecular orbits, Fölsch said, which is similar to how an electrode-gated quantum dot works.

The researchers, who also included boffins from the Freie Universität Berlin and NTT's Basic Research Laboratories in Japan, say they worked bottom-up, predicting how the molecule's charge state would affect its rotational orientations.

That prediction was then confirmed by imaging with the STM, NRL physicist Dr Steven Erwin said.

Over time, the researchers will continue studying the processes of current flow through single molecules, with an eye to integrating molecular transistors with conventional silicon technologies.

Until that happens, the giants of microelectronics will just have to struggle along with 10 nanometre fabrication. ®

Similar topics

TIP US OFF

Send us news


Other stories you might like