Nanotubes form dense transistor array
The breakneck pace of microelectronics development in the last 3 decades has relied on squeezing more and more transistors onto silicon chips. Yet, within 10 to 15 years, silicon electronics will hit its miniaturization limit, experts say.
Now, researchers at IBM’s T.J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, N.Y., have urged carbon nanotubes, potential tools for keeping miniaturization going, over a major hurdle. In the April 27 Science, Phaedon Avouris and his colleagues report making transistor arrays of single-walled carbon nanotubes. Each tube is just atoms wide.