A team of scientists at the University of Manchester has produced the world’s smallest transistor, which measures little bigger than a molecule. The transistor is the first true electronic nanocomponent, which is one atom thick and ten atoms wide. The development of the small transistor is a revolutionary step, which may enable silicon chips to continue to get smaller and could also double the processing speed of some chips.

 

Researchers led by Professor Andre Geim and Kostya Novoselov, discovered four years ago ‘graphene’, world’s thinnest material which is one atom thick and can be viewed as a plane of atoms pulled out from graphite. It is from graphene that the world’s smallest transistor is created. The graphene material is a highly stable and conductive material even when it is cut into gadgets one nanometer wide. According to the researchers, the smaller the size of the transistor, the better they perform.