Scientists from the University of Arizona and international colleagues have announced a breakthrough in microelectronics — they have managed to create a transistor that operates at a speed of more than 1 petahertz. That’s more than a million times faster than current silicon processors and could open up a new era of light computers.
Scientists from the University of Arizona and international colleagues have announced a breakthrough in microelectronics — they have managed to create a transistor that operates at a speed of more than 1 petahertz. That’s more than a million times faster than current silicon processors and could open up a new era of light computers.
The new transistor is based on graphene, an ultra-thin, single-atom layer of carbon. This is reported by Techspot with reference to research from the journal Nature Communications. Scientists used laser pulses lasting 638 attoseconds (1 attosecond = 10⁻¹⁸ seconds) to trigger the so-called quantum tunneling in the material — a phenomenon in which electrons actually «penetrate» barriers without physically passing through them.
According to one of the project leaders, Professor Muhammad Hassan, this technology has already been implemented on a conventional graphene phototransistor, which was modified with a layer of silicon.
After being exposed to ultrashort laser pulses, the team observed an asymmetric current response—instead of canceling each other out, as is usually the case in graphene, they generated a real signal. This became the basis for the world’s first «petahertz quantum transistor.»
Unlike many laboratory experiments, this development works not in sterile vacuum conditions, but at room temperature. This paves the way for practical use of such transistors in future devices.
Hassan believes that such signal processing speed could revolutionize AI, quantum computing, space technology, pharmaceuticals, and chemistry.
The University of Arizona is already working with Tech Launch Arizona to patent and commercialize the technology. The team’s next goal is to create a version of the transistor that works with a standard electrical signal, not just a laser.
As we previously reported, Republican US Senator Tom Cotton has introduced a bill that would allow location tracking on artificial intelligence chips to limit China’s access to these products.
