(Beijing time) on October 7, the evening news, the United States at the Lawrence Berkeley national laboratory (hereinafter referred to as the "Berkeley lab") professor Ali garvey (Ali Javey), a research team led by using carbon nanotubes and a called molybdenum disulfide compounds developed of the world's smallest transistors.

Transistor consists of three terminals: Source (Source) and Drain (Drain) tapping and Gate (Gate). Electric current to flow from the source to the drain, is controlled by the grid, the latter according to open and close in the applied voltage.

Berkeley lab researchers Sue jay - Desai (Sujay Desai) said: "for a long time, the semiconductor industry has long argued that no less than 5 nm gate could work normally. Therefore, people never considered less than 5 nm gate before."

But the Berkeley laboratory developed the transistor gate only 1 nm. Garvey said: "we have developed so far known smallest transistors. The length of the grid is used to measure the specifications of the transistor, we successfully developed a nanometer grid transistor, which means that as long as the choice of appropriate materials, the current electronic components mentioned and larger space."

But desai said: "our results show that less than 5 nm gate is not impossible. For a long time, people are based on silicon material to reduce the volume of electronic components. And we gave up the silicon material, chose molybdenum disulfide, the results developed only 1 nm gate."

Silicon and molybdenum disulfide have a lattice structure, but compared with molybdenum disulfide, the flow through the silicon electronic lighter, encounter less resistance. When the grid is 5 nm or more, this is one of the strengths of the silicon material. But less than 5 nm gate length, there will be a quantum mechanical phenomenon called "tunneling", so as to prevent electric current to flow from the source to the drain.

Desai said: "this means that we cannot close the transistor, electronic completely out of control." Flows and molybdenum disulfide through electronic heavier, thus can be controlled through a shorter grid.

After selected molybdenum disulfide as semiconductor material, then need to build grid. But the structure of 1 nm is not an easy thing, the traditional lithography technology does not apply to such a small scale. In the end, the researchers turned to the carbon nanotubes, only 1 nm in diameter hollow cylindrical tube.

The researchers tested shows that grid of molybdenum disulfide using carbon nanotubes transistor can effectively control electron flow. Garvey said: "this study shows that our transistor will no longer be limited to 5 nm gate. Through the use of appropriate semiconductor materials and equipment structure, Moore's law will continue to be effective for a long time."