Manchester University researchers have fabricated the world's smallest transistor, one atom thick and ten atoms wide, carved from a single graphene crystal.

Dr Kostya Novoselov and Professor Andre Geim from The School of Physics and Astronomy at The University of Manchester used graphene to make the device, showing that it is possible to carve out nanometre-scale transistors from a single graphene crystal.

Unlike all other known materials, graphene remains highly stable and conductive even when it is cut into devices one nanometre wide.

Graphene transistors start showing advantages and good performance at sizes below 10nm which is the dimension at which silicon technology is predicted to fail.

"Previously, researchers tried to use large molecules as individual transistors to create a new kind of electronic circuits. It is like a bit of chemistry added to computer engineering", says Novoselov, "now one can think of designer molecules acting as transistors connected into designer computer architecture on the basis of the same material (graphene), and use the same fabrication approach that is currently used by semiconductor industry".

"It is too early to promise graphene supercomputers," adds Geim. "In our work, we relied on chance when making such small transistors. Unfortunately, no existing technology allows the cutting materials with true nanometre precision. But this is exactly the same challenge that all post-silicon electronics has to face. At least we now have a material that can meet such a challenge."
The problem with silicon is its poor stability at 10nm and below when it oxidises, decompose and uncontrollably migrates.

Graphene is the first known one-atom-thick material which can be viewed as a plane of atoms pulled out from graphite. Manchester University scientists were the first in the world to isolate it in 2004 and has been working on it ever since. Graphene has rapidly become the hottest topic in physics and materials science.