US Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory creates the world's smallest transistor

A research team led by US Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has created the world's smallest transistor with a working one-nanometre gate.

In a study published in the journal Science, the researchers described the novel transistor made with a new combination of materials that is even smaller than the smallest possible silicon-based transistor.

"We made the smallest transistor reported to date," said lead researcher Ali Javey from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

Instead of using silicon, the researchers built their prototype device with a class of semiconductor materials called transition metal dichalcogenides, or TMDs.