NYTimes.com:
IBM researcher
Frances
Ross is growing a crop of mushroom-shaped silicon nanowires
that may one day become a basic building block for a new kind
of electronics.Nanowires are just one example, although one of
the most promising, of a transformation now taking place in the
material sciences as researchers push to create the next
generation of switching devices smaller, faster, and more
powerful than today's transistors.The reason that many computer
scientists are pursuing this goal is that the shrinking of the
transistor has approached fundamental physical limits.
