Move over silicon

Well silicon, it's been nice but it's over.
Y-shaped nanotubes are ready-made transistors

Tiny tubes of carbon, crafted into the shape of a Y, could revolutionise the computer industry, suggests new research.

The work has shown that Y-shaped carbon nanotubes are easily made and act as remarkably efficient electronic transistors - the toggles used to control the flow of electrons through computer circuits.

But the nanotransistors are just a few hundred millionths of a metre in size -roughly 100 times smaller than the components used in today’s microprocessors. They could, therefore, be used to create microchips several orders of magnitude more powerful than the ones used in computers today, with no increase in chip size.

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Experiments then showed that applying a voltage to the stem of the Y precisely controls the flow of electrons through the other two branches. The switching capacity of these nanostructures is, in comparable to that of today's silicon transistors.

And, whereas current silicon transistors have been shrunk to around 100 nanometres, the Y-shaped nanotubes measure just tens of nanometres in size. Eventually, they could even be shrunk to just a few nanometres, the researchers suggest.

I knew silicon's days were numbered. At 59 I lived to see vacumn tubes replaced by silicon transitors, the silicon transistors incorporated into integrated circuits and I may live to see silicon devices replaced with tiny tubes of carbon. Wow!!!