According to a report by Fortune on August 19th, Beijing time, a research team at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany has developed a quantum transistor consisting of only one atom, and it can operate at room temperature. This research opened a new chapter in computing power and efficiency. Transistors that control the transmission of electronic signals are the foundation of modern electronic products. For more than half a century, the steady reduction in transistor size and energy consumption has been the basic driving force behind the growth of computing power.
The new transistor relies on moving a silver atom to turn the circuit on or off. Materials science news site Nanowerk calls this transistor the smallest transistor in the world. More importantly, the new transistor is described as a "quantum switch", which means it can carry more complex information than current transistors.
The most noteworthy statement from the German research team is that the new transistors can operate at room temperature. At present, most quantum computers can only operate in ultra-low temperature environments, which increases operating costs and maintenance difficulty.
According to the researchers, their research may have a significant impact on the future of computing technology, especially in terms of energy efficiency. Thomas Schimmel, head of the research team and co-director of the Center for Monoatomic Electronics and Photonics, said that the energy consumption of the new transistor is only equivalent to "one ten thousandth" of current silicon technology.
Like most research in the field of quantum computing, it will take years for this new technology to be applied to practical computers. The new transistor uses metal instead of semiconductor material, which means it cannot be easily integrated into traditional computing architectures.
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