1 atom thick transistors made of silicon

In recent years, microelectronics researchers have become accustomed to the idea that the future of microcircuits is beyond graphene. This material allows you to create nanoscale transistors and eliminates problems with leakage current in silicon chips. However, perhaps with silicon, all is not lost.

Scientists from the University of Texas made the world's first transistor of silicene - a two-dimensional allotropic silicon compound like graphene.

Although theorists talked about the existence and possible properties of silicene, it could not be detected for a long time. Only in 2010, for the first time, silicon structures resembling silicon dioxide were observed through a scanning tunneling microscope.
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In the table of chemical elements, silicon is next to carbon, so these elements have similar properties. They are so similar that scientists even suggest the existence of life based on silicon on other planets , instead of earth's carbon life.

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The two-dimensional substance, silicene, shares other characteristics of graphene, including high electron mobility. What is also important, in silicon, a much smaller width of the forbidden band is the width of the energy gap between the bottom of the conduction band and the top of the valence band, in which there are no allowed states for the electron. That is, silicene removes the limitations familiar to silicon.

Experts from the University of Texas were able to produce a layer of silicene by applying a new process technology in a vacuum room, where carbon atoms were deposited on a silver crystal. Then, another nanometer layer of aluminum was deposited on top to protect the silicon from oxygen. Scientists managed to transfer these layers to a silicon substrate and expose some parts of silicene without damaging it.

Scientific work published in the journal Nature Nanotechnology. As usual, the Sci-Hub website provides free access to work.