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Nearly every piece of technology you use—from smartphones to computers—relies on one revolutionary component: the transistor.

Researchers have reported a black phosphorus transistor that can be used as an alternative ultra-low power switch. A research team developed a thickness-controlled black phosphorous tunnel ...

The telephone company had problems with vacuum tubes, too, and hoped to find something else to use for switching telephone calls. The idea of somehow using semiconductors (solid materials such as ...

Saswato R. Das writes about physics and astronomy. A little electronic device that triggered one of the most dramatic technological explosions in history turns 60 on Sunday. The humble transistor and ...

A Planet Analog article, “2N3904: Why use a 60-year-old transistor?” by Bill Schweber, inspired some interest in this old transistor and how it’s commonly used, and if any uncommon uses might exist.

One of the joys of writing up the entries for the 2025 Component Abuse Challenge has come in finding all the different alternative uses for the humble transistor. This building block of all modern ...

Fast switching: the Hybrid Photonics Labs at Skoltech where the new optical transistor was created. (Courtesy: Skoltech) A new optical transistor has been designed by researchers in Russia, ...

For our 2025 Component Abuse Challenge there have been a set of entries which merely use a component for a purpose it wasn’t quite intended, and another which push misuse of a part into ...