
A single-molecule room-temperature transistor made from 14 atoms - jonbaer
http://www.kurzweilai.net/a-single-molecule-room-temperature-transistor-made-from-14-atoms
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cli
Thread from last time:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15070596](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15070596)

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huhlig
IBM posted about this back in June or is this something smaller?
[https://www.ibm.com/blogs/think/2017/06/5-nanometer-
transist...](https://www.ibm.com/blogs/think/2017/06/5-nanometer-transistors/)

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foobarbecue
Nitpicking, but:

"... cobalt (blue) and sulfur (yellow) atoms (left) and
ethyl-4-(methylthio)phenyl phosphine atoms, ..."

I haven't heard of that last element!

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Etheryte
Phosphine stands for the compound PH3.

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freeone3000
Yeah, but it's not an element, therefore isn't an atom.

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givinguflac
Considering they used atom twice, I'm pretty sure they meant molecule.

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analognoise
It's funny, I looked at the diagram and went "that's not a transistor". Then
the actual words from the team involved called it a diode, and talked about it
as a junction.

So...it isn't a transistor at all.

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jacquesm
Well, sort of. A transistor is something with an 'on' state and and 'off'
state (and a whole range in between for analog purposes). This one apparently
also has an 'on' and an 'off' state but the mechanism by which they change the
state does not really spell 'transistor' though if there is an electrical way
to do it it might qualify.

The relevant bit from TFA:

"The device can reliably switch from insulator to conductor when charge is
added or removed, one electron at a time (known as “current blockade”)."

So it is more like a FET and the charge placeholder would be the gate. It's
not clear to me whether or not they had anything wired up to that spot or how
they added or removed the electrons.

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choxi
From my understanding many years ago, solving the heat dissipation problem is
the real problem behind higher transistor density. Is that still the case?

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ricardobeat
So this is the end of the road?

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corecoder
I wait for the 13 atoms version.

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athom
But what about the 7 bridges road?

