IBM’s new nanotube transistors
may lead to silicon’s swan song

IBM’s leading carbon nanotube researcher said his team’s latest discovery suggests that a serious effort should be made to commercialize molecular electronic devices.

The scientists created nanotube transistors that are faster and more powerful than the most advanced silicon-based transistors available today, said Phaedon Avouris, IBM’s manager of nanoscale science. The structures resemble silicon transistors, but consume less power and can deliver more than twice the amount of electrical current per micron at a faster rate.

The work, reported in Monday’s issue of the journal Applied Physics Letters, builds on a

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This illustration shows an IBM carbon nanotube
transistor. A carbon nanotube connects two metal
electrodes. The gate electrode, separated from the
nanotube by a thin oxide film, controls the flow of
electricity through the nanotube.
Illustration courtesy of IBM.

series of recent discoveries by Avouris’ team that could lead to electronic devices with unparalleled performance in the years ahead.

Last August, the researchers created and demonstrated the world’s first logic-performing computer circuit from nanotubes. In April 2001, they developed a technique to produce arrays of nanotube transistors.

“(That work) was more research oriented,” Avouris said. “This one here is more of the engineering type — it’s more device-oriented work than the previous announcements. It goes more to the heart of the technology, rather than interesting science.”

The work bolsters IBM’s belief that transistors — the on-off switches that are the basic elements of computers — could be made from nanotubes when silicon reaches the fundamental limit of how much circuitry it can support more than a decade from now. But Avouris said nanoelectronic devices could debut a lot sooner than that.

Within several years, Avouris predicts, there will be a hybrid technology: nanotubes and silicon devices together in circuit boards, taking advantage of the best characteristics of each. A hybrid would also save time and money, since so much of both have been invested in silicon-based technology and created a fully formed industry.

“Although we have not finished optimizing nanotube transistors, they already look like they’re going to be significantly better than silicon,” he said. “This is sort of a test: Are we doing the right thing? Yes, it’s worth following up and trying to further improve these devices.”

Chad Mirkin, director of Northwestern University’s Institute for Nanotechnology and co-founder of two companies, Nanosphere Inc. and NanoInk, said the breakthroughs of Avouris’ team likely will reap long-term benefits for IBM and molecular electronics.

“It sounds like very elegant work,” he said. “These types of discoveries can pave the way for major technological development in the years to come.”

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