New design for transistors powered by single electrons
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Colorized micrograph of three tunable gates across an electrical channel in a single electron tunneling (SET) transistor.
Scientists have demonstrated the first reproducible, controllable silicon transistors that are turned on and off by the motion of individual electrons. The experimental devices, designed and fabricated at NTT Corp. of Japan and tested at NIST, may have applications in low-power nanoelectronics, particularly as next-generation integrated circuits for logic operations (as opposed to simpler memory tasks).
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