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First Functional Molecular Transistor Comes Alive

12 pointsby iiijjjiiiover 15 years ago

1 comment

grapheneover 15 years ago
I work in this field, and although it's nice to see some experimental progress being made, I am generally sceptical of the potential of such devices as transistors in the traditional sense. Firstly, the mantra that smaller is better is not valid anymore at this scale, because of a number of reasons; most prominently of which is that the electrodes which supply the charge carriers are now (as in the picture in the article) much bigger than the device itself, making further shrinking of the device itself useless.<p>Although the specific area of molecular electronics (meaning molecular transistors) is vastly overhyped (and the Wired article doesn't help), I still think there are incredible opportunities out there if we are able to harness the electronic (meaning in this case, relating to electrons) properties of molecular-scale systems. Examples could include designing our own catalysts, pharmaceutical molecules, light-harvesting systems, or industrial materials from scratch. Limiting the search for applications of these systems to the traditional three-terminal electronic switching device, while making the subject easier for laypeople to relate to, does a disservice to a whole spectrum of other exciting other options.
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