A

Seminar Report
on
MOLETRONICS

submitted in the partial fulfillment of the requirements of the Degree of Bachelor of Technology
in Electronics & Communication Engg.
by

Shivangi Singh - 1408231090

Under the guidance of

Seminar Guide Seminar Coordinator

Ms. Lavi Agarwal Ms.Deepti Shinghal
(Assistant Professor) (Assistant Professor)

DEPARTMENT OF ELECTRONICS & COMMUNICATION ENGG.

MORADABAD INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

Ram Ganga Vihar, Phase II, Moradabad-244001 (U.P)
Session: 2016-17

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 Moradabad Institute of Technology
Department of Electronics & Communication Engg.
MORADABAD-244001
Session 20162017

CERTIFICATE

This is to certify that the seminar entitled MOLETRONICS submitted by Shivangi Singh,
Roll No. 1408231090 in partial fulfillment of the requirement of the Degree of B.Tech.in
Electronics & Communication Engineering embodies the work done by her under my guidance.

Signature of the Seminar Guide Signature of the Seminar Coordinator

Name: Ms.Lavi Agarwal Name:Ms.Deepti Shinghal
Designation:Assistant Professor Designation:Assistant Professor
Date: 20-01-17 Date : 20-01-17

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 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

With immense pleasure, I would like to express my deeper sense of gratitude to Dr. Farooq
Hussain (HODE&C Engg.) and Seminar Coordinator Ms. Deepti Shinghal (Assistant
Professor, E&C Deptt.) Moradabad Institute of Technology, Moradabad for their strenuous
guidance and giving me an opportunity to carry out my seminar work in the institute.

I particularly want to express my thanks and respect to the Seminar Guide Ms. Lavi Agarwal
(Assistant Prof. E&C Deptt.), M.I.T. Moradabad for inspiring and giving me all the valuable
suggestion from time to time.

My heartfelt gratitude goes to all faculty members of E&C Deptt., who with their encouraging
and caring words and most valuable suggestions have contributed, directly or indirectly, in a
significant way towards completion of this seminar report.

I am indebted to all my classmates for taking interest in discussing my problem and encouraging
me.

I owe a debt of gratitude to my father and mother for their consistent support, sacrifice, candid
views, and meaningful suggestion given to me at different stages of this work.

Last but not the least I am thankful to the Almighty who gave me the strength and health for
completing my report.

Shivangi Singh
1408231090

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 Table of Content
Contents Page No.
Certificate ii
Acknowledgement iii
Table of content iv
Abstract vi
List of Figures vii
List of Abbreviations viii
Chapter 1: Introduction 1
1.1 Description 1
1.2 Moores Law 1
1.3 Why Moletronics 4
Chapter 2: History 7
Chapter 3: About Moletronics 9
3.1 The Working Principle of Moletronics 9
3.1.1 Component 9
3.1.1.1 Molecular Wire 9
3.1.1.2 Molecular Logic gate 10
3.2 Advantages 11
3.3 Disadvantages 12
Chapter 4: Moletronics Devices 14
4.1 Classification 14
4.1.1 Molecular Materials for Electronic 14
4.1.2 Molecular Scale Electronic 16
4.2 Molecular Electronic Devices 18
4.2.1 Nanotechnology-Carbon Nanotubes 18
4.2.2 Molecular Electronic Half Adder 19
4.3 Characteristic of Molecular Devices 20
4.4 Molecular electronic Circuit 21
4.4.1 Crossbar and Demultiplexers 22

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Chapter 5 : Conclusion And Future Scope 24
5.1 The Future Scope of Moletronic 24
5.2 Conclusion 25
References 26

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 ABSTRACT

Moletronics or more precisely known Molecular Electronics is the application of molecular

building blocks for IC fabrication of electronic components. The electronic component can be of
active(e.g Transisters) and passive(e.g Resistors).The Moletronics gives an idea that individual
elements of computers could be formed using a single molecule of substance. This would permits
huge increases in the density of circuits on a chip and allow them to run as much faster and
cooler. The main advantage of introducing this technology is size reduction.
Molecular based electronics can overcome the fundamental physical and economic issues
limiting Silicon(Si) technology. Here, molecules will be used in place of semiconductor, creating
electronic circuit small that their size will be measured in atoms. By using molecular scale
technology, we can realize molecular AND gates, OR gates, XOR gates etc.
It is an enticing alternative to extend Moore's Law beyond the foreseen limits of small-scale
conventional Si integrated circuits. Therefore , moletronics is currently a very active research
field in the technical world.

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 List of Figures

Fig No. Name of Figure Page No.

1.1 Plot of C.P.U transistor count against 2

date of introduction

1.2 Transistor functions as an switch 3

2.1 Molecular switch 7

1 Molecular Wire 10

2 Molecular Logic gate 11

4.1 Organic LED 15

4.2 Organic Solar Cell 16

4.3 Molecular Electronic Switch 17

4.4 Structure of Carbon Nanotube 19

4.5 Molecular Electronic Half Adder 20

4.6 Crossbar and Demultiplexers 21

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 List of Abbreviations

Abbreviations Full Form

1 Si Silicon
2 IC Integrated Circuit
3 VLSI Very Large Scale Integration
4 ULSI Ultra Large Scale Integration
5 nm nanometer
6 OLED Organic light emitting doide

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 CHAPTER - 1
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Description
Semiconductor integration beyond Ultra Large Scale Integration (ULSI), through
conventional electronic technology facing some problems with fundamental physical limitations.
The fabrications of semiconductor devices have so far been guided by the Moores Law. From
around 100 transistors on a single silicon chip to the very widely used ULSI technique which
allows over 91,000 transistors, semiconductor fabrication has come a long way. But the big
question was What after ULSI? Will Moores Law cease? The definite answer to this is
Moletronics. Beyond ULSI, a new technology may become competitive to semiconductor
technology. This new technology is known is as Molecular Electronics.
Conventional Si electronics technology is much indebted to the integrated circuit (IC)
technology. IC technology is one of the important aspects that brought about a revolution in
electronics. With the gradual increased scale of integration, electronics age has passed through
SSI (small scale integration), MSI (medium scale integration), LSI (large scale integration), and
ULSI (ultra large scale integration). These may be respectively classified as integration
technology with 1-12 gates, 12-30 gates, 30-300 gates, 300-10000 gates, and beyond 10000 gates
on a single chip.

1.2 Moores Law

The density of IC technology is increasing in pace with Famous Moores law of 1965.
Till date, Moores law about the doubling of the number of components in an IC every year holds
good. He wrote in his original paper entitled Cramming Moore Components Onto Integrated
Circuit that, the complexity for minimum component costs has increased at the rate of roughly a
factor of 2 per year. Certainly, over the short term, this rate can be expected to continue, if not to
increase. Over the longer term, the rate of increase is a bit more uncertain, although there is no
reason to believe that it will not remain constant for at least ten more years.

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 Fig 1.1A plot of CPU transistor counts against date of introduction

It is now over 30 years since Moore talked of this so called semiconductor technology. It
is found that ICs are following his law. But Moore's law is an observational law and not
a physical or natural law. Although the rate held steady from 1975 until around 2012, the rate
was faster during the first decade. In general, it is not logically sound to extrapolate from the
historical growth rate into the indefinite future. For example, the 2010 update to the International
Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors, predicted that growth would slow around 2013 and in
2015 Gordon Moore foresaw that the rate of progress would reach saturation: "I see Moore's
law dying here in the next decade or so."According to Intel, the pace of advancement in
technology has slowed, starting at the 22nm and continuing at 14nm size reduction. This
advancement will probably continue till 2021and this has been predicted that shrinking of
transistors every two year will reach its maximum limit to 7nm or 5nm.After this point, Well
known Moores law will not be followed by ICs. Then what will happen after this end ? Will this
VLSI or ULSI techniques of semiconductor ICs stop ? Is this the end of technology ? The
answer of these questions is definitely NO !! NEVER!!

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 But beyond ULSI techniques, a new technology is introduced against of semiconductor
ICs technology. This new technology is known as Molecular electronics.
For a scaling technology beyond ULSI, prof. Forest Carter put forward a novel idea that
instead using a transistor, a molecule (a single molecule or a small aggregate of molecule) might
be used to represent the two states, namely ON & OFF conditions of digital electronics. For
example, one can use positive spin & negative spin of a molecule to represent two states of
binary logic as ON & OFF conditions respectively.
As in the new concept a molecule rather than a transistor is proposed to be used, the
scaling technology may go to Molecular Scale. It is therefore defined as MSE stated as
Molecular Scale Electronics. MSE is far beyond the ULSI technology in terms of scaling. In
order to augment his postulation Prof. Carter conducted a number of international conferences on
the subject. The outcome of these conferences has been to establish the field of molecular
electronics.
"Single molecules are currently the smallest imaginable components capable of
being integrated into a processor."

Fig.1.2 Molecule functions as an Switch

When a beam of light then hits the molecule, it switches from its open to its closed state,
resulting in a flowing current. "For the first time ever we could switch on a single contacted
molecule and prove that this precise molecule becomes a conductor on which we have used the
light beam. "We have also characterized the molecular switching mechanism in extremely high
detail, which is why I believe that we have succeeded in making an important step toward a
genuine molecular electronic component."
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 However, as of today, molecular electronics is a broad field. The field is a result of a
search for alternative materials, devices and applications of electronics. The field deals with
organic materials. The field is a challenge but not a replacement for inorganic electronics on
immediate terms. Molecular electronics is a technological challenge to explore the possible
application of organic materials, non-linear optics and biologically important materials in the
field of electronics. Therefore hopes run high for realization of plastic electronic systems, all
optical computers, and chemical or bio-computers with inbuilt thinking functions and biochips
etc.
Molecular electronics, which is a high investment and high-risk field, is at the same time
a highly promising one. High investment and risks are involved in the initial phases. Under
commercial phases the cost molecular systems shall be cheaper. The prospects of molecular
electronics depend on the successful interaction and coordination of scientists of diverse fields
like computer, electronics, physics, chemistry, biology, material science, etc.

1.3 Why Moletronics ?

The future of Moores Law is not CMOS transistors on silicon. Within 25 years, they will
be as obsolete as the vacuum tube. While this will be a massive disruption to the semiconductor
industry, a larger set of industries depends on continued exponential cost declines in
computational power and storage density. Moores Law drives electronics, communications and
computers and has become a primary driver in drug discovery and bioinformatics, medical
imaging and diagnostics. Over time, the lab sciences become information sciences, and then the
speed of iterative simulations accelerates the pace of progress.
There are several reasons why molecular electronics is the next paradigm for Moores Law:
1. Size: Molecular electronics has the potential to dramatically extend the miniaturization
that has driven the density and speed advantages of the integrated circuit (IC) phase of
Moores Law. For a memorable sense of the massive difference in scale, consider a single
drop of water. There are more molecules in a single drop of water than all transistors ever
built. Think of the transistors in every memory chip and every processor ever built,
worldwide. Sure, water molecules are small, but an important part of the comparison

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 depends on the 3D volume of a drop. Every IC, in contrast, is a thin veneer of
computation on a thick and inert substrate.

2. Power: One of the reasons that transistors are not stacked into 3D volumes today is that
the silicon would melt. Power per calculation will dominate clock speed as the metric of
merit for the future of computation. The inefficiency of the modern transistor is
staggering. The human brain is ~100 million times more power efficient than our modern
microprocessors. Sure the brain is slow (under a kHz) but it is massively parallel (with
100 trillion synapses between 60 billion neurons), and interconnected in a 3D volume.
Stan Williams, the director of HPs quantum science research labs, concludes: it should
be physically possible to do the work of all the computers on Earth today using a single
watt of power.

3. Manufacturing Cost: Many of the molecular electronics designs use simple spin coating
or molecular self-assembly of organic compounds. The process complexity is embodied
in the inexpensive synthesized molecular structures, and so they can literally be splashed
on to a prepared silicon wafer. The complexity is not in the deposition or the
manufacturing process or the systems engineering. Biology does not tend to assemble
complexity at 1000 degrees in a high vacuum. It tends to be room temperature or body
temperature. In a manufacturing domain, this opens the possibility of cheap plastic
substrates instead of expensive silicon ingots.

4. Elegance: In addition to these advantages, some of the molecular electronics approaches

offer elegant solutions to non-volatile and inherently digital storage. We go through
unnatural acts with CMOS silicon to get an inherently analog and leaky medium to
approximate a digital and non-volatile abstraction that we depend on for our design
methodology. Many of the molecular electronic approaches are inherently digital and
immune to soft errors, and some are inherently non-volatile.

5. Assembly and recognition: One can exploit specific intermolecular interactions to form
structures by nanoscale self-assembly. Molecular recognition can be used to modify
electronic behavior, providing both switching and sensing capabilities on the single-
molecule scale.
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6. Dynamical stereochemistry : Many molecules have multiple distinct stable geometric
structures or isomers (an examples the relaxant molecule in figure 3d, in which a
rectangular slider has two stable binding sites along a linear track). Such geometric
isomers can have distinct optical and electronic properties. For example, the retinal
molecule switches between two stable structures, a process that transduces light into a
chemo electrical pulse and allows vision.

7. Synthetic tailor ability : By choice of composition and geometry, one can extensively
vary a molecules transport, binding, optical, and structural properties. The tools of
molecular synthesis are highly developed.

The advantages render molecules ideal for electronics

applications

CHAPTER-2
HISTORY

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 Study of charge transfer in molecules was advanced in the 1940s by Robert Mulliken and
Albert Szent-Gyorgi in discussion of so-called "donor-acceptor" systems and developed the
study of charge transfer and energy transfer in molecules. Likewise, a 1974 paper from Mark
Ratner and Aviram illustrated a theoretical molecular rectifier.

Fig.2.1 Molecular rectifier

Later, Aviram detailed a single-molecule field-effect transistor in 1988. Further concepts

were proposed by Forrest Carter of the Naval Research Laboratory, including single-molecule
logic gates. He also proposed the single molecule can be used as an switch like a transistor acts
in Digital electronics.

Apart from the Aviram and Ratner proposal, molecular electronics received an initial
boost from the experimental discovery of conducting polymers in the mid-seventies. Before this
date, organic molecules (which form crystals or polymers) were considered insulating or at best
weakly conducting semi-conductors. In 1974, McGinness, Corry, and Proctor reported the first
molecular electronic device in the journal Science. As its active element, this voltage-controlled
switch used melanin, an oxidized mixed polymer of polyacetylene, polypyrrole, and polyaniline.
The "ON" state of this switch exhibited extremely high conductivity. This device is now in the
Smithsonian's collection of historic electronic devices. As Hush notes, their material also showed

negative differential resistance, "a hallmark of modern advances in molecular electronics".

Melanin is also the first example of a "self-doped" organic semiconductor, though McGinness
also looked at dopants such as diethyamine.

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 A few years later, in 1977, Shirakawa, Heeger and MacDiarmid rediscovered the
potential high conductivity of oxidized ("doped") polyacetylene, producing a passive highly-
conductive form of polyacetylene. For this discovery and its subsequent development, they
received the 2000 Nobel prize in physics. Subsequentely, chemists greatly improved the
conductance of conjugated polymers. These findings opened the door to plastic electronics and
optoelectronics, which are beginning to find extensive commercial application.

CHAPTER-3
ABOUT MOLETRONICS

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3.1 The Working Principle of Moletronics
The basic working principle of moletronics is the same as the conventional silicon
fabricated chips. The main difference is in the workability of the two. While the conventional
silicon chips have shown tremendeous advancement throughout their development from the SSI
to the latest ULSI, moletronics seems to the best when it comes to performance. Thus,
moletronics uses molecular blocks as a substitute to the traditional silicon. Everything else
remains the same in the integrated circuits. Also, to use them as a switch only one electron is
sufficient to either turn ON or OFF of these molecular transistors. To work on moletronics,
molecular components are required as :

3.1.1 Components
3.1.1.1 Molecular Wires
The main electronic component here is the molecular wire. This is a different concept
than the use of conductive polymers. Molecular wires can be infused as conductive polymers,
thereby enhancing their various mechano-electric properties. Molecular wires have a repeating
structure which can be either organic or inorganic in nature. Their structure can be familiarized
well with the study of the Human DNA. These can conduct electricity. These typically have non-
linear current-voltage characteristics and do not behave like ohmic conductors. Their
conductance follows the typical power law as a function of temperature or electric field,
whichever is the greater, arising from their strong one-dimensional character. Their typical
diameters are less than three nanometers, while their lengths may be macroscopic, extending to
centimeters or more. Most types of molecular wires are derived from organic molecules. One
naturally occurring molecular wire is DNA.

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 Fig.3.1 Molecular wire

These are also called as nanowires which should be able to self-assemble to be used in
moletronics. They should have the ability to connect to diverse metal surfaces such as gold
which is extensively used in semiconductor fabrication industries to form the connection with the
outside world. In addition to this, the connectors should have the recognitive ability.

3.1.1.2 Molecular Logic gates

The next important component involves the concept of molecular logic gates. To start off
with, molecular logic gate is a molecule that is capable of doing the logical operations as its bulk
electronic counterpart. Its operations are based on one or more physical or chemical input which
send a single output. These molecular logic devices are also termed as moleculators.
For logic gates with a single input, there are four possible output patterns. When the input
is 0, the output can be either a 0 or 1. When the input is 1, the output can again be 0 or 1. The
four output bit patterns that can arise corresponds to a specific logic type: PASS 0, YES, NOT
and PASS 1. PASS 0 always outputs s0, whatever the input. PASS 1 always outputs 1, whatever
the input.

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 Fig.3.2 Molecular Logic gate

These have advanced so far that now these are capable of computingcombinational and
sequential logical operations. One break-through in this technology is the use of these
components as memory storage devices. Molecular logic gates work with input signals based on
chemical processes and with output signals based on spectroscopy.

3.1 Advantages of Moletronics

Molecular structures are very important in determining the properties of bulk materials,
especially for application as electronic devices. The intrinsic properties of existing inorganic
electronic materials may not be capable of forming a new generation of electronic devices
envisioned, in terms of feature sizes, operation speeds and architectures. However, electronics
based on organic molecules could offer the following advantages:
1.Molecular Size
Molecules are in the nanometer scale between 1 and 100 nm. This scale permits small
devices with more efficient heat dissipation and less overall production cost to be made.
2.Efficiency
One of the reasons that transistors are not stacked into 3D volumes today is that the
silicon would melt. The inefficiency of the modern transistor is staggering. It is much less
efficient at its task than the internal combustion engine. The brain provides an existence proof of
what is possible; it is 100 million times more efficient in power than our best processors. Sure it
is slow (under a kHz) but it is massively interconnected (with 100 trillion synapses between 60

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billion neurons), and it is folded into a 3D volume. Power per calculation will dominate clock
speed as the metric of merit for the future of computation.
3.Self Assembly technique of Molecule
One can exploit different intermolecular interactions to form a variety of structures by the
array of self-assembly techniques which are reported in the literature. The scope of application of
the self-assembly technique is only limited by the researchers ability to explore.
4. Manufacturing cost
Many of the molecular electronics designs use simple spin coating or molecular self-
assembly of organic compounds. The process complexity is embodied in the synthesized
molecular structures, and so they can literally be splashed on to a prepared silicon wafer. The
complexity is not in the deposition or the manufacturing process or the systems engineering.
Much of the conceptual difference of nanotech products derives from a biological metaphor is
complexity builds from the bottom up and pivots about conformational changes, weak bonds,
and surfaces. It is not engineered from the top with precise manipulation and static placement.
5. Low Temperature Manufacturing
Biology does not tend to assemble complexity at 1000 degrees in a high vacuum. It tends
to be room temperature or body temperature. In a manufacturing domain, this opens the possibility
of cheap plastic substrates instead of expensive silicon ingots.

5.2 Disadvantages of Molecular Electronic

Here are some demerits of Molecular Electronic which can stated as :
Molecular electronics is not at all cost effective. Complete fabricated components
developed by it are quite expensive and their maintenance cost is also high.
This technology is not easily understandable. For proper knowledge the basic concepts
of nanotechnology and nano electronics must be studied first.
Difficult error recovery because of high integration at smallest scale, it is hard to detect
the physical error in the device.

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 The components developed because of high manufacturing cost, its components are not
readily available.
Specialized engineers and scientists are required to handle and control the risks factors of
molecular electronics.

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 CHAPTER-4
APPLICATION OF MOLETRONICS

4.1 Classification of Moletronics

The classification of moletronics is based on the utility of the molecule. These are
illustrated below with brief differences of :

4.1.1 Molecular Material for Electronics

Molecular Materials for Electronics or Organic electronics is a field of materials
science concerning the design, synthesis, characterization, and application of organic
small molecules or polymers that show desirable electronic properties such as conductivity.
Unlike conventional inorganic conductors and semiconductors, organic electronic materials are
constructed from organic (carbon-based) small molecules or polymers using synthetic strategies
developed in the context of organic and polymer chemistry. One of the promised benefits of
organic electronics is their potential low cost compared to traditional inorganic electronics.
Attractive properties of polymeric conductors include their electrical conductivity that can be
varied by the concentrations of dopants. Relative to metals, they have mechanical flexibility.
Some have high thermal stability.
Typical examples of Molecular Materials for Electronics are :
4.1.1.1 OLED

An organic light-emitting diode (OLED) is a light-emitting diode (LED) in which

the emissive electroluminescent layer is a film of organic compound that emits light in response
to an electriccurrent. This layer of organic semiconductor is situated between two electrodes;
typically, at least one of these electrodes is transparent. OLEDs are used to create digital
displays indevices such as television screens, computer monitors, portable systems such
as mobile phones, handheld game consoles. A major area of research is the development of white
OLED devices for use in solid-state lighting applications.

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 Fig.4.1Flexible OLED Device

There are two main families of OLED are one is based on small molecules and another
employing polymers. Adding mobile ions to an OLED creates a light-emitting electrochemical
cell (LEC) which has a slightly different mode of operation. OLED displays can use
either passive-matrix (PMOLED) or active-matrix (AMOLED) addressing schemes. Passive
matrix OLEDs (PMOLED) uses a simple control scheme in which you control each row (or line)
in the display sequentiallywhereas active-matrix OLEDs (AMOLED) require a thin-film
transistor backplane to switch each individual pixel on or off, but allow for higher resolution and
larger display sizes.
An OLED display works without a backlight; thus, it can display deep black levels and
can be thinner and lighter than a liquid crystal display (LCD). In low ambient light conditions
(such as a dark room), an OLED screen can achieve a higher contrast ratio than an LCD,
regardless of whether the LCD uses cold cathode fluorescent lamps or an LED backlight.

4.1.1.2 Organic Solar Cell

An organic solar cell or plastic solar cell is a type of photovoltaic that uses organic
electronics, a branch of electronics that deals with conductive organic polymers or small organic

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molecules, for light absorption and charge transport to produce electricity from sunlight by
the photovoltaic effect. An example of an organic photovoltaic is the polymer solar cell.

Fig.4.2 Organic Solar Cell

The molecules used in organic solar cells are solution-processable at high throughput and
are cheap, resulting in low production costs to fabricate a large volume. Combined with the
flexibility of organic molecules, organic solar cells are potentially cost-effective for photovoltaic
applications. Molecular engineering (e.g. changing the length and functional group of polymers)
can change the band gap, allowing for electronic tunability. The optical absorption coefficient of
organic molecules is high, so a large amount of light can be absorbed with a small amount of
materials, usually on the order of hundreds of nanometers. The main disadvantages associated
with organic photovoltaic cells are low efficiency, low stability and low strength compared to
inorganic photovoltaic cells such as silicon solar cells.

4.1.2 Molecular Scale Electronics

Molecular scale electronics, also called single molecule electronics, is a branch

of nanotechnology thatuses single molecules, or nanoscale collections of single molecules,
as electronic components. Because single molecules constitute the smallest stable structures
possible, this miniaturization is the ultimate goal for shrinking electrical circuits.

Conventional electronic devices are traditionally made from bulk materials. Bulk
methods have inherent limits, and are growing increasingly demanding and costly. In single

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molecule electronics, the bulk material is replaced by single molecules. The molecules used have
properties that resemble traditional electronic components such as a wire, transistor, or rectifier.

Single molecule electronics is an emerging field, and entire electronic circuits consisting
exclusively of molecular sized compounds are still very far from being realized. However, the
continuous demand for more computing power, together with the inherent limits of the present
day lithographic methods make the transition seem unavoidable. Currently, the focus is on
discovering molecules with interesting properties and on finding ways to obtain reliable and
reproducible contacts between the molecular components and the bulk material of the electrodes.

4.1.2.1 Molecular Electronics Switch

A molecular switch is a electronics molecule that can be reversibly shifted between two
or more stable states.The molecules may be shifted between the states in response to
environmental stimuli, such aschanges in pH, light, temperature, an electric current,
microenvironment, or in the presence of a ligand.

Fig.4.3 Molecular switch

In some cases, a combination of stimuli is required. The oldest forms of synthetic
molecular switches are pH indicators, which display distinct colors as a function of pH.

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Currently synthetic molecular switches are of interest in the field of nanotechnology for
application in molecular computers or responsive drug delivery systems.

Molecular switches are also important to in biology because many biological functions
are based on it. They are also one of the simplest examples of molecular machines.

4.2 Molecular Electronics Devices

Molecular electronics has wide range of applications in the work areas of chemistry,
physics, electronics and nano electronics, technology, artificial intelligence and medical
equipment. Almost all the fabricated chips in the intelligent machinery that is used on large scale
has molecular electronic involved in its construction. For example resistors and transistors that
are used in producing electricity,capacitors in space crafts, automation circuits of robots,
strategic plant temperature handlers and CT scan for displaying the infected areas of body.
In the field of chemistry it is used to see the chemical reactions in stimulated models of
nuclear reactors, and also for measuring the acidic and reactive properties of individual element.
Some of these applications of Molecular Electronics are explained below in brief :

4.2.1 Carbon Nanotubes

Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are allotropes of carbon with a cylindrical nanostructure.
These cylindrical carbon molecules have unusual properties, which are valuable
for nanotechnology, electronics, optics and other fields of materials science and technology.
Owing to the material's exceptional strength and stiffness, nanotubes have been constructed with
length-to-diameter ratio of up to 132,000,000:1, significantly larger than for any other material.
In addition, owing to their extraordinary thermal conductivity, mechanical,
and electrical properties, carbon nanotubes find applications as additives to various structural
materials and electronics.
For instance, nanotubes form a tiny portion of the materials in some primarily carbon
fiber like baseball bats, golf clubs, car parts .

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 Fig.4.4 Structure of Carbon nanotubes

Nanotubes are members of the fullerene structural family. Their name is derived from
their long, hollow structure with the walls formed by one-atom-thick sheets of carbon,
called graphene. These sheets are rolled at specific and discrete angles, and the combination of
the rolling angle and radius decides the nanotube properties; for example, whether the individual
nanotube shell is a metal or semiconductor. Nanotubes are categorized as single-walled
nanotubes (SWNTs) and multi-walled nanotubes (MWNTs). Individual nanotubes naturally align
themselves into "ropes" held together by vander Waals forces.
Applied quantum chemistry, specifically, orbital hybridization best describes chemical
bonding in nanotubes. The chemical bonding of nanotubes is composed entirely of sp2 bonds,
similar to those of graphite. These bonds, which are stronger than the sp3 bonds found
in alkanes and diamond, provide nanotubes with their unique strength. The carbon nanotube is
also known as bucky balls. These carbon nanotube structures make a very conductive wire and
are stable in nature.

4.2.2 Molecular Electronic Half Adder

Molecular Electronic Half Adderwith a complete set of molecular logic gates, larger
structures can be made that implement higher binary digital functions. An electronic half adder
can be built using Tour wires and molecular AND and XOR gates and measuring only 10 nm x
10 nm. When currents and voltages representing two addends are passed through the molecular
half adder, they will be added electronically.

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 Fig.4.5 Molecular Half Adder

The half adder has two inputs that split the current introduced so that the current passes
through both of the logic gates regardless of which input receives the current. Results from the
AND and XOR gates are delivered to separate outputs.
By using an out-of-plane connector structure, an in-plane molecular wire can be passed
over making it possible to connect the gates. Even though the input to each molecular lead is
split, signal loss should not be a problem because the signal is recombined on the output side of
the structure. In our half adder design, a 3-methylene aliphatic chain resistor is embedded in the
output lead that goes to the ground to help minimize signal loss.

4.3 Characteristics of Molecular Devices

The characteristics of Molecular Electronics Devices are given as:
1.Non-linear I-V Behavior
Unlike solid-state electronics, the I-V behavior of a molecular wire is nonlinear. Some
molecular devices will take advantage of this nonlinearity.

2.Energy Dissipation
When electrons move through a molecule, some of their energy can be lost to other
electrons motions and the motion of the nuclei of the molecule. The amount of energy lost
depends on the electronic energy levels of the molecule and how they interact with the
molecules. Depending on the mechanism of conductance, the energy loss can range from very
small to significantly large.

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3.Gainin Molecular Electronic Circuits
In large molecular structures deploying molecular devices with power gain, such as
molecular transistors, there will be a need to restore signal loss. Gain is needed in order to
achieve signal isolation, maintain signal-to-noise ratio, and to achieve fan-out.
4.Speed
Energy dissipation relates closely to the speed at which a molecular electronic circuit can
operate. If strong couplings cause the signal-to-noise ratio to dramatically decrease, a greater
total charge flow would be needed to ensure the reading of a bit. This would require more time.
Because of their scale and density, molecular electronic computers may not need to be faster than
semiconductor computers to be highly important. The molecular half-added described earlier is
one million times smaller than one in a Pentium processor.

4.4 Molecular Electronics Circuits

The power of chemical synthesis to design specific and perhaps even useful device
behaviors is rapidly being realized. The ensuing question, what sorts of circuit architectures can
best take advantage of molecular electronics, is now receiving quite a bit of attention both from
computer scientists and from experimentalists; progress toward identifying and constructing
working molecular electronics circuitry has advanced quickly. The proposed circuit architectures
have attempted to deal with five key issues:
scalability to near molecular dimensions; tolerance of manufacturing defects.
introduction of non-traditional fabrication methods, such as chemically directed
assembly.
bridging between device densities potentially achievable at the molecular scale.
associated with standard lithography.
fabrication simplicity.
The dominant circuit structure that has arisen from those considerations is the crossbar,
12, which is essentially an expanded ticktacktoe board, formed from wires and having individual
molecular or molecular-scale devices sandwiched within the junctions. The crossbar is an
intrinsically versatile circuit and is tolerant of manufacturing defects. Both memory and logic
circuits have been demonstrated from molecular electronics and Nano wire crossbars. 13 rapidly

29
developing area of architectural research involves stitching together a patchwork quilt of
different types of crossbars with the goal of configuring an efficient computational platform.

4.4.1 CROSSBARS AND DEMULTIPLEXERS

Fig.4.6 Crossbar and Demultiplexers

One of the most attractive architectures for designing molecular-electronics circuits for
computational applications and interfacing them to the macroscopic world is the crossbar. The
general concept is shown on the left, where a sort of patchwork quilt of logic, memory, and
signal routing circuits is laid out. The simplest of these circuitsand one that has been
experimentally demonstrated is a memory circuit.

The memory, shown on the right, consists of two major components. The central
crossbar which has the crossing of16 vertical and 16 horizontal black wires constitutes a 256-bit
memory circuit. Bitable molecular switches are sandwiched at the crossings of the densely
patterned Nano wires, and each junction can store a single bit. Each set of the larger blue wires is
arranged into a binary tree multiplexer. The multiplexers here adopt some interesting
architectural variations that allow them to bridge from the micron or sub micron scale of the blue
wires to the nanometer scale of the black wires.

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 Each multiplexer consists of four sets of complementary wire pairs, designed to address
24 nano wires. The scaling is logarithmic: 210nanowires, for example, would require only 10
wirehairs for each multiplexer. One wire within each pair has an inverted input; a 0 input, for
example, sends one wire low and its complement high. Along each blue wire is a series of
rectifying connections (gray bars) to the Nano wires; each pair of wires has a complementary
arrangement of connections. When a given address misapplied, the multiplexer acts as a four-
input AND gate so that only when all four inputs are high does a given Nano wire go high. The
orange bars indicate how one wire is selected by each multiplexer. At the upper right is shown
more detail for a multiplexer wire that selects a pattern of four connects followed by four opens.
Note that the separation between the individual contacts is much larger than the pitch of the nano
wires; that larger separation greatly reduces the fabrication demands. The frequencies of the
patterns of connections are important, but not the absolute registry: Each nano wire is uniquely
addressable, but the mapping of addresses to nanowires is not important.
These two characteristics allow the architecture to bridge the micron or submicron length
scales of lithography to the nanometer length scales of molecular electronics and chemical
assembly.
This also illustrates how such a patchwork integrated-circuit architecture might be laid
out and presents some detail on the simplest of the circuit componentsa molecular electronic
random access memory. This particular circuit satisfies all five of the key.

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 CHAPTER5
CONCLUSION AND FUTURE SCOPE

5.1The future Scope of Moletronics

The drive toward yet further miniaturization of silicon-based electronics has led to a
revival of efforts to build devices with molecular-scale organic components. However, the
fundamental challenges of realizing a true molecular electronics technology are daunting.
Controlled fabrication within specified tolerances and its experimental verification are major
issues. Self-assembly schemes based on molecular recognition will be crucial for that task.
Ability to measure electrical properties of organic molecules more accurately and reliably is
paramount in future developments. Fully reproducible measurements of junction conductance are
just beginning to be realized in labs.
Working molecular electronic devices exist today. Research progress is steady and strong,
giving us cause to believe that molecular electronic systems may be practical in five to ten years.
If lithography reaches fundamental physical or economic limits, molecular electronics may allow
us to continue observing Moores Law. Regardless, molecular bottom-up fabrication could give
us a much better alternative, whose price would depend mainly on design and test cost.
Challenges to making this reality are plentiful at every level, some naturally in physics
and chemistry, but many in ICCAD. These include fabricating and integrating devices, managing
their power and timing, finding fault-tolerant and defect-tolerant circuits and architectures and
the test algorithms needed to use them, developing latency-tolerant circuits and systems, doing
defect-aware placement and routing, and designing, verifying and compiling billion-gate designs
and the tools to handle them. Any one of these could block practical molecular electronics if
unsolved.
Many of these are challenges that will be faced regardless of the underlying technology.
Molecular electronics provides a pure and extreme example, and strengthens the case for solving
them sooner rather than later. Robust modeling methods are also necessary in order to bridge the
gap between the synthesis and understanding of molecules in solution and the performance of
solid-state molecular devices. In addition, the searching of fabrication approaches which can
couple the densities achievable through lithography with those achievable through molecular

32
assembly is also a great challenge. Controlling the properties of molecule-electrode interfaces
and constructing molecular-electronic devices that can exhibit signal gain are also crucial to the
development in the field.

5.4 Conclusion
Molecular electronics clearly has the advantage of size. The components of these circuits
are molecules, so the circuit size would inherently range between 1 to 100 nm. Molecular
systems, or systems based on small organic molecules, possess interesting and useful electronic
properties. The rapidly developing area of organic or plastic electronics is based on these
materials. The investigations of molecular systems that have been performed in the past have
been strongly influenced.
Molecular electronics is reaching a stage of trustable and reproducible experiments. This
has lead to a variety of physical and chemical phenomena recently observed for charge currents
owing through molecular junctions, posing new challenges to theory. The potential application of
molecular electronics has already attracted the interest of some large corporate.
The subject of molecular electronics has moved from mere conjuncture to an
experimental stage. Research in molecular electronics will naturally dominate the next century.
Today is the age of information explosion. Polymer materials have old hopes of rapid
development of improved systems and techniques of computing and communications the two
wings of information technology.
For e.g, polymer optical fiber has a number of advantages over glass fibers like better
conductivity, light weight, higher flexibility is in splicing and insensitivity to stresses etc. All
these show that polymers will play a vital role in the coming years and MSE shall compete with
IC technology which is growing in accordance with Moores law prediction.

33
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