If the very beneficial trend in the improvement of computers via miniaturization is to be continued into the next century, cost-effective technologies must be developed to fabricate and to integrate trillions of electronic components on the nanometer-scale. Two broad approaches exist for achieving such "nanoelectronics." One approach, solid-state nanoelectronics, is attempting to sculpt smaller and smaller features on solid-state semiconductor surfaces in order to manufacture denser computer chips. However, this approach is becoming ever more difficult and costly as miniaturization progresses.
A promising alternative approach, which may be less costly, is to use natural nanometer-scale structures--i.e., individual molecules--to make the electronic components. Molecules can be made precisely, identically, and cheaply in enormous numbers. Moreover, during the past several years there has been great progress in the development and the demonstration of such "molecular electronic" devices, individual molecules that conduct and switch electrical currents.
The speaker will review and explain these recent experimental results that are establishing a foundation for constructing tiny, powerful computational and control systems integrated on the molecular scale. Further, he will describe research at The MITRE Corporation that is building upon these experimental results to propose detailed designs for molecular electronic digital computer circuitry. These conductive molecules, if realized, would use much less power and they also would be as much as one million times smaller in area than the comparable circuits on a state-of-the-art commercial microcomputer chip.