working transistor from a single phosphorus atom

This in an incredible nanoengineering breakthrough, Australian and American physicists created a working transistor from a single phosphorus atom. The development could one day lead to quantum computers, which would be substantially smaller and faster than those of today.
The achievement is noteworthy for another reason: It challenges Moore’s law, which states that the number of transistors that can be placed on an integrated circuit will double roughly every two years. (More on that in a second.)
The physicists accomplished this feat by embedding the atom into a bed of silicon covered with a layer of hydrogen atoms. The New York Times reports, “Phosphine gas was then used to deposit a phosphorus atom at a precise location, which was then encased in further layers of silicon atoms.”
The achievement, conducted by scientists at the University of New South Wales and at Purdue University, were published in Nature Nanotechnology.