Engineers have figured out how to mass-produce electronic parts that are only five atoms wide.
They developed a way to print features just 1.75 nanometers across over large areas, a size where quantum physics takes over. This is a massive leap for creating ultra-fast electronics and "quantum dots" that were previously impossible to manufacture at scale.
A scalable platform for nanometer-scale quantum confinement
arXiv · 2604.08957
Overcoming the limitations of current nanofabrication techniques to achieve nanoscale feature sizes is essential for achieving new regimes of light-matter interactions at extreme frequencies and length scales. Here, we demonstrate a scalable nanofabrication platform capable of producing in-plane feature sizes down to 1.75 nm, pushing the boundaries of current top-down nanofabrication techniques. Using precise thickness control of atomic layer deposition (ALD) and employing widely spaced oxide na