Hewlett-Packard researchers said they have created a device that one day could replace transistors, key building blocks in computers for the past five decades.
Scientists with HPs Quantum Science Research group, or QSR, in a paper published last week in the Journal of Applied Physics, reported that they built a small device called a “crossbar latch,” which measures just nanometers across and that can perform one of three key logic functions in computers.
The latch, comprising a single wire that is crossed by two others and joined at a switchable molecular-scale junction, can perform the NOT operation when a sequence of electrical impulses are sent. The result could be computers that are thousands of times more powerful than current systems, the scientists said in a statement.
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