never say never - vacuum transistor

Markd77

Joined Sep 7, 2009
2,806
Looks promising, but not as good as the graph at the bottom implies, made by someone who thinks we don't understand log graphs.
 

Sparky49

Joined Jul 16, 2011
833
I was being shown around a research lab at a uni where they were working on very similar stuff just the other week! :eek:

Important lesson - we can learn much from what has come before.
 

Papabravo

Joined Feb 24, 2006
21,159
Looks promising, but not as good as the graph at the bottom implies, made by someone who thinks we don't understand log graphs.
I don't know about promising, but interesting to go where we haven't been before. Why do you think the picture was made by someone who thinks we don't understand logarithmic scales?
 

Markd77

Joined Sep 7, 2009
2,806
Just that the point for 460GHz shoud be further to the left, roughly in the same place relative to the scale markings as the 40GHz point is.
 

GopherT

Joined Nov 23, 2012
8,009
Interesting last paragraph...

About the Authors

Jin-Woo Han and Meyya Meyyappan work at NASA Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., where Han is a research scientist and Meyyappan is chief scientist for exploration technology. The vacuum-channel transistors they describe grew out of an unrelated attempt to oxidize a single thin nanowire. “It ended up as two separate electrodes,” says Han, who then realized that the botched experiment could be turned into a new kind of transistor.
 

alfacliff

Joined Dec 13, 2013
2,458
several years ago, there was a push to develope vacuum digital integrated circuits for the military to use for protection from EMP. I guess they didnt really discover anything quite as new and fresh as they thought. using integrated circuit manufacturing techniques to fab vacuum tube gates, flipflops and such.
 

BR-549

Joined Sep 22, 2013
4,928
This is a great idea. Another classic example of a basic fundamental principle can solve a problem. Need a vacuum? Don’t want to build a special environment? Go small.....your vacuum is there waiting for you. So size matters. This should help Moore’s Law for awhile. Lower power, higher quality. It’s all good. . . . Interesting concept. Here at atmospheric pressure(and gravity)...in the same space and time, there is a very strong vacuum also. Apparently....on a small scale, pressure does not have the same effect as it does in the large scale. Maybe...no effect. Is it pressure that is effecting the process inside of stars? What really happens down there? How many postulations have been made on the effect of gravitational pressure on the reactions at the nuclear level? Is it gravitational pressure that truly lights a star?
 
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