Washington: In a major breakthrough which may pave the way for super fast computers, scientists claim to have created the world`s smallest transistor from a "quantum
dot" of just seven atoms.
An international team has claimed that despite its incredibly tiny size -- a mere four billionths of a metre long -- the quantum dot is a functioning electronic device, the
world`s first created deliberately by placing individual atom.
According to the scientists, it can be used to regulate and control electrical current flow like a commercial transistor but it represents a key step into a new age of atomic-scale miniaturisation and superfast computers.
"The significance of this achievement is that we are not just moving atoms around or looking at them through a microscope. We are manipulating individual atoms and placing
them with atomic precision, in order to make a working electronic device.
"The team has been able to fabricate an electronic device entirely out of crystalline silicon where we have replaced just seven individual silicon atoms with phosphorus atoms. That is amazing exactness.
"This is a huge technological achievement and it is a critical step to demonstrating that it is possible to build the ultimate computer -- a quantum computer in silicon," team