I  U  P  A  C






News & Notices

Organizations & People

Standing Committees

Divisions

Projects

Reports

Publications
..CI
..PAC
..Macro. Symp.

..Books
..Solubility Data

Symposia

AMP

Links of Interest

Search the Site

Home Page

 

Pure Appl. Chem. Vol. 72, Nos. 1-2, pp. 11-20, 2000

Special Topic Issue on the Theme of
Nanostructured Systems

 

Wires, switches, and wiring. A route toward a chemically assembled electronic nanocomputer

James R. Heath

Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, UCLA, 405 Hilgard Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90095-1569 USA

Abstract: A Boolean logic, nonreversible computing machine should, in principle, be capable of 10 18 bit operations per second at a power consumption of 1 W. In order to build such a machine that can even approach this benchmark for efficiency, the development of a robust quantum-state switch capable of ambient operation, as well as a bottom�up manufacturing technology, will be necessary. My group, in collaboration with Hewlett Packard, has developed much of the architecture for such a machine, which we call a chemically assembled electronic nanocomputer (CAEN). More recently, in a collaborative effort with Fraser Stoddart�s group at UCLA, we have begun to build it. The fundamental unit of the machine is a field-programmable molecular switch, and the fundamental architecture is a hierarchical organization of wire/switch lattices called crossbars. Electronically, singly configurable molecular-based switch devices based on rotaxane molecular compounds have been fabricated in high yield. These switches were used to construct simple molecular-based logic structures and read-only memory elements.

Back to Contents for access to full text


Page last modified 5 May 2000.
Copyright ©2000 International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry.
Questions or comments about IUPAC, please contact, the Secretariat.
Questions regarding the website, please contact web manager.