Nanoscale microprocessors could get a big performance boost from a technique that enables semiconducting materials to be doped with useful impurities one atom at a time.

The impurities – or dopants – are added to semiconductors to fine-tune their electronic properties. Normally, a less conductive material, such as arsenic or phosphorus, is introduced to a semiconductor like silicon or germanium through diffusion or another chemical technique.



The process is random on a molecular scale but uniform enough at the scale of current semiconductor components to produce a regular and predictable change in properties.



However, as electronic components shrink ever smaller – enabling greater computing power to be packed into circuits – variations in the concentration of dopants can cause problematic variations in the material’s conductivity.



Now Takahiro Shinada and colleagues at Waseda University in Tokyo, Japan, have found a solution to this problem – adding individual ions to semiconductors with nanoscale accuracy.



More here.