Smallest. Transistor. Ever.: 1nm gate

[DocM]

Paper: http://science.sciencemag.org/content/354/6308/99

 

http://newscenter.lbl.gov/2016/10/06/smallest-transistor-1-nm-gate/

 

Smallest. Transistor. Ever.

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Some laws are made to be broken, or at least challenged.

A research team led by faculty scientist Ali Javey at the Department of Energys Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) has done just that by creating a transistor with a working 1-nanometer gate. For comparison, a strand of human hair is about 50,000 nanometers thick.

We made the smallest transistor reported to date, said Javey, lead principal investigator of the Electronic Materials program in Berkeley Labs Materials Science Division. The gate length is considered a defining dimension of the transistor. We demonstrated a 1-nanometer-gate transistor, showing that with the choice of proper materials, there is a lot more room to shrink our electronics.

The key was to use carbon nanotubes and molybdenum disulfide (MoS2), an engine lubricant commonly sold in auto parts shops. MoS2 is part of a family of materials with immense potential for applications in LEDs, lasers, nanoscale transistors, solar cells, and more.

The findings were published today in the journal Science. Other investigators on this paper include Jeff Bokor, a faculty senior scientist at Berkeley Lab and a professor at UC Berkeley; Chenming Hu, a professor at UC Berkeley; Moon Kim, a professor at the University of Texas at Dallas; and H.S. Philip Wong, a professor at Stanford University.

The development could be key to keeping alive Intel co-founder Gordon Moores prediction that the density of transistors on integrated circuits would double every two years, enabling the increased performance of our laptops, mobile phones, televisions, and other electronics.

The semiconductor industry has long assumed that any gate below 5 nanometers wouldnt work, so anything below that was not even considered, said study lead author Sujay Desai, a graduate student in Javeys lab. This research shows that sub-5-nanometer gates should not be discounted. Industry has been squeezing every last bit of capability out of silicon. By changing the material from silicon to MoS2, we can make a transistor with a gate that is just 1 nanometer in length, and operate it like a switch.
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[Unobscured Vision]

Now the question is how durable it is. A gate that small is going to be ultra sensitive and super-fast (because it's going to be naturally non-resistant), but that same quality will make it ultra-susceptible to everything that Transistors are already susceptible to -- in spades.

 

I'm sure they'll work it all out before getting it to-process.  

[Unobscured Vision]

I was thinking about this one some more. Lot of good characteristics at this level (sub-10nm) but they have to be really careful how they deal with waste heat produced by the circuit it's in. Especially one this small, it'll be (again) ultra-sensitive. Likely they'll be running it under precision-controlled conditions, etc.