These Transistor Gates Are Just One Carbon Atom Thick

For decades, silicon transistors become smaller and smaller, but they are fast approaching the point at which they can no longer shrink the lengths of their gates—that is, how far current must travel in these devices. Now, by using atomically thin materials, scientists in China have created a transistor with a record-breaking gate length of just roughly one-third of a nanometer wide, only as thick as a single layer of carbon atoms, shedding light on how much smaller—if at all—transistors can possibly get.