Earlier in February, researchers in Australia were able to make a transistor out of a single atom. The transistor consists of a single phosphorus atom encased in silicon. Although single-atom transistors have been created before, they have never been made with such precision and were often created by chance.
The transistor was created by placing a silicon crystal in a vacuum and using a scanning tunnelling microscope to replace one atom of the six-atom lattice with a phosphorus atom.
Transistors are the basis of computer chips and their purpose is to control and amplify electrical signals. Smaller transistors mean more on a chip, which makes the chip more powerful for its size.
Moore’s law was predicted by one of the founders of Intel, Gordon Moore, and states that the amount of transistors that can fit on a chip economically will double every 18 months and the trend has continued for over 50 years. For the law to continue, atom sized transistors must be used in 2020. Whether or not a manufacturing process will be available in the future for this single-atom transistor is still unknown, especially since it currently operates at temperatures around -196°C, so whether or not Moore’s law will be upheld is uncertain.
This transistor is by no means a practical product yet, but it has proved that a single-atom transistor can be consistently created. Although we won’t be seeing this technology in our computers for many years to come, the creation of the smallest transistor possible is a big step towards that goal.
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