According to the official website of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the 1-inch-size carbon nano-transistors successfully developed by the school's material scientists have surpassed silicon transistors and GaAs transistors for the first time in performance. This breakthrough is a major milestone in the development of carbon nanotubes, and will lead carbon nanotubes in the field of logic circuits, high-speed wireless communications and other semiconductor electronic devices. The carbon nanotube tube wall is only one atom thick and is one of the best conductive materials, so it is considered to be the most promising next-generation transistor material.

The ultra-small space of carbon nanotubes allows it to rapidly change the direction of current flow through it, thus achieving five times the speed or energy consumption of silicon transistors compared to only one-fifth of silicon transistors. Because of some key technical challenges that cannot be overcome, carbon nanotransistors far deviate from silicon transistors and GaAs transistors and cannot be used in computer chips and personal electronics. The latest carbon nanotransistors achieve 1.9 times the current of silicon transistors, and for the first time surpass the current state of the art silicon transistors. The latest research paper published by the research team led by materials engineering professors Mike Arnold and Padma Gopalan in Science Progress. Metal nanotubes are often mixed in the carbon nanotubes. These metal nanotubes cause short circuit of the electronic device, thereby destroying the electrical conductivity of the carbon nanotube. The research team used the polymer to obtain the unique conditions for removing the metal nanotubes, and finally reduced the content of the metal nanotubes to less than 0.01%, which is almost ultra-high purity carbon nanotubes. The research team also developed a dissolution method that successfully removes residues from the carbon nanotube manufacturing process. Arnold said: "Our research has overcome the multiple obstacles faced by carbon nanotubes, and finally obtained the 1-inch carbon nano-transistor with the performance of the first super-silicon transistor. Many ideas for carbon nanotubes have yet to be realized, but we finally have twenty years. After the realization of catching up." (China Science and Technology Network)