Nanotech breakthrough - scientists attain control of how electrons move through a nano-transistor

Today, all electronics are based on transistors. The smallest transistors are nano-transistors. Two physicists from the Nano-Science Centre and the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen have now attained unsurpassed control of the migration of electrons in a nano-transistor. By using quantum physics, the scientists have made the electrons 'communicate' with each other.

In a recent experiment, carried out at temperatures near absolute zero, the scientists show how electrons through their so-called 'spin' establish a quantum mechanic cohesion and thereby help each other through the molecule in the nano-transistor.

This achievement is not only a breakthrough in the fundamental research of nanotechnology; it also influences the development of tomorrow's electronics, e.g. future super-fast quantum-computers.

The result is attained through an international collaboration with physicists from Harvard University and Universität Karlsruhe, and are published in Nature on the 4th of July 2006.

Contact:
- Associate Professor Jens Paaske, the Niels Bohr Institute & the Nano-Science Centre at University of Copenhagen
paaske@fys.ku.dk, Phone: +45 30317139

- Associate Professor Jesper Nygård, the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen
nygard@nbi.dk, Phone: +45 35320486