Physicists invent 'QuIET' single molecule transistors: "They have applied for a patent on their device, called Quantum Interference Effect Transistor, nicknamed 'QuIET.' The American Chemical Society publication, Nano Letters, has published the researchers' article about it online. The research is planned as the cover feature in the print edition in November.

A transistor is a device that switches electrical current on and off, just like a valve turns water on and off in a garden hose. Industry now uses transistors as small as 65 nanometers. The UA physicists propose making transistors as small as a single nanometer, or one billionth of a meter.

'All transistors in current technology, and almost all proposed transistors, regulate current flow by raising and lowering an energy barrier,' University of Arizona physicist Charles A. Stafford said. 'Using electricity to raise and lower energy barriers has worked for a century of switches, but that approach is about to hit the wall.' "