Researchers Build a Transistor Out Of a Single Electron

A stepping stone toward quantum computing and artificial atoms

By Clay Dillow Posted 04.19.2011 at 4:52 pm 9 Comments

SketchSET at the Atomic Scale Image courtesy of University of Pittsburgh

University of Pittsburgh researchers have assembled a key piece of tech that will help enable a future generation of extremely powerful quantum computers as well as advanced electronic materials and better computer memories. Their single-electron transistor is the first of its kind made entirely from oxide-based materials, an important aspect that allows it to work as a solid-state memory.

SketchSET--or sketch-based single-electron transistor--contains a tiny 1.5-nanometer-wide island at its core that operates with just one or two electrons at a time. The ability to work at such small scales makes it ideal for several advanced computing applications, like quantum processors that would be orders of magnitude more powerful than existing supercomputers.

The tiny transistors could also enable ultradense memory that packs far more information into far less space than existing memory.

But the subatomic possibilities don’t end there. That tiny central island at the heart of the technology could also be used as an artificial atom, the researchers say. These in turn could be used to develop new classes of electronic materials, like superconductors with exotic properties not see in natural materials.

But the real upside here is in the intended application: computing. Because the transistors are oxide-based, they possess a ferroelectric property that allows them to act as solid-state memory. That means that even when they are powered down they can control the number of electrons on the island. The number of electrons dictate the ones and zeros that are the basis of computer memory, meaning that a future computer based on such transistors could hold its data even without external power.

[Science Daily]

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9 Comments

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bessiemae

04/19/11 at 7:40 pm

Can this be used to measure the speed of electromagnetism or light?

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IceMetalPunk

04/20/11 at 12:48 am

Nice. So, like memristors, these would act as both processors and storage, allowing instant on/off and removing the need to ever save anything (as cutting power wouldn't erase any information in memory). It would also allow the possibility that if you're working on something and the power dies, as soon as the power kicks back in your computer would just pop back on where it left off.

Unfortunately, also like memristors, it'll probably be a long time before we actually see this kind of tech in use.

@bessiemae: Why? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_of_light

-IMP ;) :)

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JohnStClair

04/20/11 at 4:32 am

What about cosmic rays bombarding these electron memory devices? Working with scintillation detectors shows that cosmic rays produce a shower of electrons that emit light. I would think they would need shielding. I remember that one of the astronaut's helmets had a 1/4 inch deep track from a cosmic ray.

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boka

04/20/11 at 7:03 am

I'm looking forward to the day where we have supercomputer blood cells. No more need to eat food or breath air.

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CodeZero

04/20/11 at 7:19 am

@boka, I'm curious how having cells that are able to do computations would negate the need to injest sustenance. Might want to rethink that one...

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Kehvan

04/20/11 at 10:35 am

@bessiemae -- We already "the speed" of electron flow and we also already know the speed of light and can measure it, so I'm not so certain how or why you want to know if this will measure such things.

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boka

04/20/11 at 12:33 pm

CodeZero, not rethink, retype. Keep in mind it is 4/20 today.

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ginko free

04/20/11 at 8:43 pm

I wish when they say this could be used to create an artificial atom they would go into detail. What are the limits one wonders of the scope of manipulation of quantum forces.

A gravity shield? Not likely. The property of antimatter? Antigravity would be nice. Is this where the tractor beam comes from, or conversely, a propulsion system fueled by an intensified and directional antigravity.

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JohnStClair

04/21/11 at 2:57 pm

@ginko free - Check out some of Linda Moulton Howe's books and you will see one sketch of the anti-gravity chamber in the bottom of the alien spacecraft. It consists of three concentric toroidal waveguides that produce a linear gear-like space-time curvature from the ground to the spacecraft. By phasing the waves in the toroidal waveguide, the gear rises or falls. The human who is being abducted stands on the rising space-time curvature and is carried into the hovering spacecraft. The principle is analogous to Tesla's 3-phase electric motor where the three magnetic field phases combine into a single rotating wave. You might think of this electric motor as falling down in a circular gravitational field. This anti-gravity device could be used to get rid of the orbiting space junk by pushing it away from earth into the sun or pulling it into the atmosphere where it will burn up if not too big.

One university in California is experimenting with this gear-like curvature to move forward or backward in time. Notice that Einstein's tensor has time manipulation in the top left corner (TT) of the matrix. The rest of the matrix shows the space-time curvature as normal or shear pressures which is what produces the anti-gravity elevator.