IBM announced a leap forward in the realization of carbon nanotubes circuits. It’s one of the most promising technologies in electronics but so far many problems in its practical application prevented its practical use. IBM now claims to have discovered a way to use it to create transistors to replace the current silicon-based ones.
Experiments with carbon nanotubes have been going on for several years clashing particularly with the problem of miniaturization. The electrons inside a transistor made of carbon can move more easily than in those in silicon. The thin body of the carbon nanotubes also provides a further advantage at the atomic scale.
The problem arises from the fact that with the miniaturization the electrical resistance between the contacts increases and this causes a performance degradation. In essence, in theory chip composed of transistors in carbon nanotubes could be smaller than those in silicon but in practice so far this problem prevented this technology from being adopted.
Now IBM claims to have solved this problem by developing a metallurgical process similar to the microscopic welding to chemically bind the metal atoms to the carbon atoms at the ends of nanotubes. IBM used molybdenum as a material for these contacts. This metal’s atoms react with the carbon’s, forming a weld considered perfect at the ends of the nanotubes.
According to IBM, this metallurgical process will allow to create a manufacturing process down to 1.8 nanometers. To understand what kind of progress this would be, simply think that a few months ago IBM announced that it produced a working silicon chip using a manufacturing process at 7 nanometers. That’s state of the art silicon technology and who knows when it will go into production. The potential of the transistors in carbon nanotubes is much beyond those possibilities!
Promises concerning technologies in carbon nanotubes have been coming for years but without concrete results. Lately, however, something seems to be changing. For example, a few months ago Nantero announced that that type of technology is in the process of being applied for the creation of a new type of non-volatile memories. IBM stated the intention to create technologies based on carbon nanotubes within this decade. Maybe this time the promises will be kept.
