Hugh Pickens writes "Moore's Law, the cornerstone of the
semiconductor industry, may get a reprieve from its predicted
demise. As wires shrink to just nanometers in diameter, their
resistivity tends to grow exponentially, curbing their
usefulness as current carriers. But now a team of researchers
has shown that it is possible to fabricate low-resistivity
nanowires at the smallest scales imaginable by stringing
together individual atoms in silicon as small as four atoms
(about 1.5 nanometers) wide and a single atom tall. The secret
is to introduce phosphorus along that line because each
phosphorus atom donates an electron to the silicon crystal,
which promotes electrical conduction. They then encase the
nanowires entirely in silicon, which makes the conduction
electrons more immune to outside influence. By embedding
phosphorus atoms within a silicon crystal with an average
spacing of less than 1 nanometer, the team achieved a diameter-
independent resistivity, which demonstrates ohmic scaling to the
atomic limi