

One-atom-thin ‘silicene’ silicon transistors invented - denismars
http://www.kurzweilai.net/one-atom-thin-silicene-silicon-transistors-invented

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flashingleds
Last year when I was looking into silicene it was all very controversial and
nobody seemed to have given all the necessary evidence to prove they'd made it
(i.e. honeycomb lattice with the right atomic spacing AND dirac cones in the
bandstucture).

Now I guess it's not only accepted but there are already devices? That's some
rapid progress.

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kevinwang
Can someone knowledgeable about this field comment on how big this invention
is?

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acadien
We've known about silicene and germanene for a while, the question of their
stability free standing is still open. But because their application primarily
lay in electronics the goal is to grow a silicene or germanene in place, on
top of some inductor and use it as is. Its hard though, you need just the
right surface with just the right AVD settings. Basically you do a few
thousand simulations to figure out what _might_ work, then you lock a grad
student in a lab and have them try to grow it.

We knew it would likely be possible to grow, but how easily and what final
properties it would have (due to interactions with the surface it is grown on)
weren't entirely known. Also keep in mind this is one of a dozen different
possible technologies for building future devices with.

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ommunist
One step closer to the Singularity.

