Japanese researchers say they have built semiconductor nanotubes with a diameter of about one nanometer, a scale so small it is roughly 100,000 times thinner than a human hair. The work is more than a lab curiosity: it points to a practical route toward tighter, more reliable transistors and could help the future of chip design as silicon architecture reaches its limits.
The team, which included scientists from the University of Tokyo, also says the result backs up theoretical calculations published about 25 years ago. That matters because chip research is full of elegant ideas that never survive contact with manufacturing, and this one had a particularly annoying obstacle: keeping ultra-thin inorganic nanotubes stable enough to use.
How the 1-nanometer nanotube stack was built
Instead of trying to force the material into shape directly, the researchers used boron nitride nanotubes as a kind of mold. Those outer tubes act as an insulator and structural support, while a layer of molybdenum disulfide, or MoS2, forms inside when heated.
The result is a nested, ”matryoshka” structure: one nanotube inside another. Because the inner space is so constrained, the atoms line up with very few defects, which is exactly what device engineers want and what manufacturing usually ruins.
Why MoS2 nanotubes are getting attention
The new structure is a natural fit for Gate-All-Around, or GAA, transistors, the architecture now seen as one of the most promising directions in advanced chips. That is the same broad design logic behind the latest leading-edge processors, where better control over current is the whole game.
Compared with silicon, the appeal is obvious: conventional chips are carved by etching, and at extreme scales that process introduces defects. MoS2 nanotubes, by contrast, are formed with near-atomic precision. Compared with carbon nanotubes, they may also be less temperamental, since carbon structures can flip from semiconductor to conductor with tiny changes in form.
- Diameter: about 1 nanometer
- Material: MoS2 inside boron nitride nanotubes
- Target architecture: Gate-All-Around transistors
- Next step: longer nanotubes, from several hundred nanometers to 1 micrometer and beyond
The real test is scale
The researchers are now trying to extend the nanotubes from several hundred nanometers to 1 micrometer and beyond, which is the sort of boring-sounding engineering step that decides whether a breakthrough becomes a product or just a paper. They also want to adapt the method for magnetic and superconducting nanostructures.
If they can make that leap, the technology could become a building block for a new generation of ultra-compact electronics. For now, the bigger story is simpler: after decades of theoretical promise, Japanese researchers have found a way to make an almost impossibly thin semiconductor structure behave well enough to matter.