Boffins boast of 'slidetronics' breakthrough enabling binary switch just two atoms thick The latest Apple fondleslab is thin, sure, but it could be thinner – like what boffins at Tel Aviv University have hailed as "the world's tiniest technology," measuring just two atoms thick. "Our research stems from curiosity about the behavior of atoms and electrons in solid materials," explained Moshe Ben Shalom, PhD, …
The article is behind a paywall, but the abstract doesn't indicate what is precisely meant by "switch". What they've done (and it is clever) is a state-stable mechanically sliding mechanism controlled by an electric field. Three questions beg to be answered:
[1] would this be suitable to be used as a current carrying switch (even at microsignal levels)?
[2] if so, what would its switching capacity be?
[3] given its scale, how sensitive would it be to interference?
I wonder how such a switch would react to the bit flipping "cosmic ray" effect that low atom count transistors are vulnerable to. The switch magnetic field might help, but I don't know enough to know if actually would (My knowledge is quite low in this area so is a honest question).
Also, how does quantum tunnelling affect it - if at all?
Possibly given how comparatively tiny these switches would be they could be ganged and use a vote system to ensure accuracy.
That is: each element would contain not one but 3 or 5 (or any low odd number) switches and all are given the same conditions and any switches that give a dissenting answer are ignored.
Just how robust these switches would be? I mean a gentle breeze can dissolve stuff over enough time and when it's only got 2 atoms it's need the purest of vacuums to ensure just being made didn't destroy the work.
And that's before you consider fun and games of having cosmic radiation smash through it like everything else on earth with unerring frequency.
No, the article is very clear. There are two sheets. Each one is made up of half boron atoms and half nitrogen atoms. And the sheets can be on top of each other in two configurations; one is where the boron atoms in one are on top of nitrogen atoms in the other and vice versa, and the other is where similar atoms in the two sheets are in contact.
Can we stop with that obsession ?
I know science-fiction films want us to have holographic phones and tablets springing up from a wristband, but we've already reached the point where your phone in your back pocket will snap if you forget to take it out before you sit down.
We have reached peak thinness.
It is time we get back to something that you can actually hold onto without fear of the screen snapping.
Oh, and we need to get back to having repaceable batteries, Apple be damned.
All right, they laboriously put two boron nitride sheets over each other in a way that doesn't occur in nature.
Then, they ran an electric current through it, and the sheets moved to the natural configuration.
My question would be: can they run another electric current through it to put it back in the original configuration they made? If not, this is not necessarily a discovery with the potential to be of any use. I suppose it could be claimed that this is a first step, even so, but that's not really clear.
I know of it as a lubricant that works in high vacuum and high temperatures. As the summary implies, it has a structure similar to graphite. I think boron nitride also forms a very hard structure, like diamond. Another graphite-like chemical is molybdenum disulphide. There is some grease we use at work, which is used for rust prevention in a mechanism subject to major friction stresses. According to the data sheet, the grease still works, even if the oily part evaporates, leaving only the solids behind.
I learned about the uses of boron nitride from a barman, who happened to be a high vacuum physicist. Any kind of volatile lubricant is verboten. I think my physicist friend was between exciting cutting-edge disciplines. Carbon nanotubes were so yesterday, or something.
Graphite is a fairly good lubricant, but suffers from oxidation, which boron nitride does not.
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