Teensy-weensy transistors...

QuIET: Quantum Interference Effect Transistors!

University of Arizona physicists have discovered how to turn single molecules into working transistors. It's a breakthrough needed to make the next-generation of remarkably tiny, powerful computers that nanotechnologists dream of.

They have applied for a patent on their device, called Quantum Interference Effect Transistor, nicknamed "QuIET." The American Chemical Society publication, "Nano Letters," has published the researchers' article about it online at Nano Letters. The research is planned as the cover feature in the print edition in November. <read more>

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This is cool some stuff.  I've recently become obsessed with nano-technology and it seems like there is something new every day. 

The Pentium 4 CPU has somewhere around 55,000,000 transistors.  Each of those transistors can be as small as 65 nanometers.  If you've been around computers much, you know about the heat the CPU generates.  That heat translates to lost energy.  25 nanometers is considered the minimum size limit for current technology transistors because of the tremendous energy required. 

"Even if it were possible to build an ultra-advanced laptop computer with molecule-sized transistors using current transistor technology, it would take a city's worth of electricity to run the laptop, and the thing would get so hot it would probably vaporize."

The QuIET technology promises to reduce the size of a single transistor to ONE nanometer.  A billionth of a meter.  And the CPU mentioned before would run at room temperature.

This is exciting stuff!