An Indian-American scientist Latha Venkataraman has led team of Columbia engineering researchers to develop a single-molecule electronic device which holds the potential of real-world technological applications for nano scale devices.
Latha Venkataraman has created a single-molecule electronic device which has a potential of real-world technological applications for nanoscale devices.
Under the direction of Venkataraman, researchers created a single-molecule diode which performs 50 times better than all prior designs.
Constructing a device where the active element is only a single molecule, has long been a tantalising dream in nanoscience.
Venkataraman said, “Our new device represents the ultimate in functional miniaturization that can be achieved for an electronic device.”
With electronic devices decreasing in size day by day, the field of molecular electronics has become more interpretative in solving the problematic miniaturization.
Single molecule denotes the limit of miniaturization.
It was Arieh Aviram and Mark Ratner who suggested the idea of creating a single-molecule diode when in 1974 they theorized that a molecule could act as a rectifier, a one-way conductor of electric current.
The next goal of the team is to understand the fundamental physics behind their finding and try to intensify the rectification ratios that were observed, using new molecular systems.
The report was featured in the journal Nature Nanotechnology.
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