China creates the world's smallest transistor with a 0.34nm gate, which is the limit for modern materials
A scientific group from the Celestial Empire was able to come up with a unique transistor design. Their design solution made it possible to obtain the smallest transistor in the world, with a gate length of 0.34 nm.
It is no longer possible to further reduce the size of the shutter using the so-called traditional technological processes. After all, the resulting gate length is equal to the width of a single carbon atom.
How did the engineers manage to achieve such a result
I would like to say right away that at the moment the development of Chinese engineers is experimental, and so far it cannot boast of any outstanding technical parameters.
But despite this, the engineers showed the very possibility of such a concept, as well as its ability to be reproduced using traditional technological processes.
So, the scientists called the resulting device "Sidewall Transistor". Yes, the very idea of a vertical orientation of a transistor channel is not new, and it has even been implemented by Samsung and IBM. But the engineers of the Middle Kingdom really managed to surprise everyone.
The thing is that the shutter in the resulting device is a cut of just one atomic layer of graphene, the thickness of which corresponds to the thickness of one carbon atom and is equal to 0.34 nm.
Technology for obtaining the smallest transistor in the world
So, in order to get such a transistor, scientists took an ordinary silicon substrate as a base. Next, on this substrate, a pair of steps was made from an alloy of titanium and palladium. And a sheet of graphene was placed on the higher level. And as the scientists emphasized, with this laying, special accuracy is not necessary.
Next, a layer of aluminum pre-oxidized in air was placed on a graphene sheet (the oxide acts as an insulator for the structure).
Once the aluminum is in place, the normal etching process starts, exposing the edge of the graphene as well as the cut of the aluminum overlay.
This is how a graphene shutter of only 0.34 nm is obtained, while a slice of aluminum opens slightly above it, which is already capable of forming an electrical circuit, but not directly.
At the next step, hafnium oxide, which is an insulator, is laid on the steps and on the side part, which, as time does not allow the gate to form an electrical connection with the rest of the transistor, as well as with the channel transistor.
And already on the hafnium layer, semiconductor molybdenum dioxide is laid, which just plays the role of a transistor channel, the control of which lies on the gate in the form of a slice of graphene.
Thus, the scientists obtained a structure, the thickness of which is equal to only two atoms and a gate of one atom. In this case, the drain and source of this transistor are metal contacts that were deposited on molybdenum dioxide.
This is how we managed to get the smallest transistor in the world with a gate of 0.34 nm.
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