From my understanding many years ago, solving the heat dissipation problem is the real problem behind higher transistor density. Is that still the case?
It's funny, I looked at the diagram and went "that's not a transistor". Then the actual words from the team involved called it a diode, and talked about it as a junction.
Well, sort of. A transistor is something with an 'on' state and and 'off' state (and a whole range in between for analog purposes). This one apparently also has an 'on' and an 'off' state but the mechanism by which they change the state does not really spell 'transistor' though if there is an electrical way to do it it might qualify.
The relevant bit from TFA:
"The device can reliably switch from insulator to conductor when charge is added or removed, one electron at a time (known as “current blockade”)."
So it is more like a FET and the charge placeholder would be the gate. It's not clear to me whether or not they had anything wired up to that spot or how they added or removed the electrons.
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[ 15.8 ms ] story [ 1105 ms ] thread"... cobalt (blue) and sulfur (yellow) atoms (left) and ethyl-4-(methylthio)phenyl phosphine atoms, ..."
I haven't heard of that last element!
So...it isn't a transistor at all.
The relevant bit from TFA:
"The device can reliably switch from insulator to conductor when charge is added or removed, one electron at a time (known as “current blockade”)."
So it is more like a FET and the charge placeholder would be the gate. It's not clear to me whether or not they had anything wired up to that spot or how they added or removed the electrons.