Absurdly powerful personal computers and smartphones
could hit the shelves within 15 years thanks to the invention of a single-atom
transistor.
The breakthrough was made by researchers from the
University of New South Wales (UNSW), Purdue University and the University of
Melbourne.
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| A scanning tunnelling microscope 3D image of the single-atom transistor, which sits precisely in the centre |
They have created a working transistor consisting of
a single atom placed precisely in a silicon crystal - and this unprecedented
atomic accuracy may yield the elementary building block for a future quantum
computer with unparalleled power.
It was 1954 when Texas Instruments scientist George
Teal created the first silicon transistor.
From there they got smaller and smaller which allows
them to fit in ever tighter clusters. The more transistors there are and the
smaller the space, the more binary calculations can be done.
Getting a transistor down to one single atom has
been a dream of every scientist and now it’s been achieved.
Until now, single-atom transistors have been
realised only by chance, where researchers either have had to search through
many devices or tune multi-atom devices to isolate one that works.
‘But this device is perfect’, says Professor
Michelle Simmons, group leader and director of the ARC Centre for Quantum
Computation and Communication at UNSW. ‘This is the first time anyone has shown
control of a single atom in a substrate with this level of precise accuracy.’
The microscopic device even has tiny visible markers
etched onto its surface so researchers can connect metal contacts and apply a
voltage, says research fellow and lead author Dr Martin Fuechsle from UNSW.
‘Our group has proved that it is really possible to
position one phosphorus atom in a silicon environment - exactly as we need it -
with near-atomic precision, and at the same time register gates,’ he says.
The team has also defeated the so-called Moore's
Law. This was based on a statement by Gordon Moore to Electronics Magazine in
1965, which estimates the rate at which the number of transistors that can fit
on a single circuit will double.
Following the rate of doubling every 18 months to
two years, Moore's Law predicts that a working single-atom transistor would be
created by 2020.
Today, thanks to researchers, this mind-blowing
benchmark has been achieved about eight years earlier than anticipated.
Professor Simmons added: ‘We really decided 10 years
ago to start this program to make single-atom devices as fast as we could, and
try and beat that law.
‘So here we are in 2012, and we've made a
single-atom transistor in roughly about eight to 10 years ahead of where the
industry is going to be.’
Despite the breakthrough, it will take about 15 to
20 years to be used practically.
