Electron-based transistors created

More than a year has passed since the creation of the transistor the size of an atom (December 7, 2009). Scientists at the University of Pittsburgh have surpassed the technology of Dr. Mikko Mettonen and created a single-electron transistor, which is now a "brick" in the building of more powerful processors, advanced electronic materials and basic components of quantum computers.

In the journal Nature Nanotechnology, researchers report that the central component of the transistor is an island with a diameter of 1.5 nanometers, which works by connecting only 1 or 2 electrons. Such an opportunity makes this transistor indispensable in the field of computing applications, from super-dense memory to quantum processors and powerful devices that promise to solve such complex problems that all current computers in the world, taken together, for billions of years, will not be able to solve.

Also, the "nanoisland" can be used to develop an artificial atom for the development of a whole class of electronic materials, such as exotic superconductors with properties that are not found in nature, explained the chief researcher Jeremy Levy, professor of physics and astronomy at the Pitt's Shcool of Arts and Sciences).

Levy and his colleagues named their device - SketchSET (sketch-based single electron transistor) or single-electron transistor, named after the technology developed in Levy's laboratory in 2008 (Etch A Sketch). Using a sharp probe-conductor of an atomic force microscope, it can create electronic devices such as nanometer-sized wires and transistors based on crystals of strontium titanate (Strontium Titanate) and a thickness of 1.2 nanometers of a layer of lanthanum aluminate (Lanthanum Aluminate).

The number of electrons on one island can be zero, one or 2. Depending on the number of islands, the islands conduct different properties of conductivity. The wires that come from transistors can also hold a few electrons around the island.

As Levy explained, one of the advantages of a single-electron transistor is its high sensitivity to electronic charges. Another property of the oxides on the basis of which the transistor is created is ferroelectricity, which allows the transistor to play the role of a semiconductor memory. The state of ferroelectricity, in the absence of external energy, can control the number of electrons on the island, which can be 1 or 0 in the memory element. According to Levy, a computer whose memory is based on such technology can store memory even when the processor is without power.

VIA Science Daily