UT Dallas researchers work on breakthrough transistor technology

University of Texas at Dallas (UT Dallas) researchers recently detailed their breakthroughs in developing a transistor with a new combination of new materials that allows for exciting size reductions in a study in Science.
 
“As of today, the best, smallest silicon transistor devices commercially available have a gate length larger than 10 nanometers,” UT Dallas professor Dr. Moon Kim said. “The theoretical lower limit for silicon transistors is about 5 nanometers. The device we demonstrate in this article has a gate size of 1 nanometer, about one order of magnitude smaller. It should be possible to reduce the size of a computer chip significantly utilizing this configuration.”
 
Kim coauthored the study with graduate student Qingxiao Wang and researchers from the University of California, Berkeley; Stanford University; and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Led by the latter institution, UT Dallas researchers contributed to the project through characterization of the transistor, accomplished with an atomic resolution electron microscope.
 
“The device we demonstrated shows more than two orders of magnitude reduction in leakage current compared to its silicon counterpart, which results in reduced power consumption,” Kim said. “What this means, for example, is that a cellphone with this technology built in would not have to be recharged as often.”