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Electronics

Carbon nanotubes finally deliver

Nature volume 484, pages 321–322 (2012)Cite this article

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A carbon-nanotube transistor has been made that performs better than the best conventional silicon analogues. The result propels these devices to the forefront of future microchip technologies.

Every time you turn on your computer to browse the Internet or write a presentation, billions of tiny switches called transistors orchestrate a dance of electrons in the computer's processor that is tuned to the rhythm of the underlying software. By letting electric current flow or not, the transistors, which are made of silicon, create the states (the 'zeros' and 'ones') on which our Boolean computer world is currently based. Writing in Nano Letters, Franklin et al.1 describe how they have created a transistor based on carbon that promises to outperform its silicon counterparts in future electronic circuitry.

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Figure 1: A carbon-nanotube transistor.

References

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  1. Franz Kreupl is in the Department of Hybrid Electronic Systems, Technische Universität München, 80333 München, Germany.,

    Franz Kreupl

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  1. Franz Kreupl
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Correspondence to Franz Kreupl.

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Kreupl, F. Carbon nanotubes finally deliver. Nature 484, 321–322 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/484321a

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