A Brief Overview of Moletronics (Molecular Electronics Field) which I have created for Technical Presentation Competition.

1. Moletronics: The Future Electronics

2. Agenda
• Moore’s Law and its limitations.
• Introduction to moletronics.
• Some molecular components.
• Advantages of moletronics.
• Disadvantages of moletronics.
• Conclusion.

3. What is Moore’s Law ?
Moore’s law is just an observation that the amount of transistors that can fit in a
single chip gets doubled every 18 months or 24 months which was proposed by and
named after Gordon Moore co-founder of INTEL in 1965.
Semiconductor is still following Moore’s Law, presently there are around 10 billion
transistors in a chip.
Limitations of Moore’s Law
To fit many transistors on a single chip we need to decrease the size of transistors
(which is distance between the source and drain). Now, the smallest size of transistor
is 10nm as we decrease the size even more to 7nm or 5nm at that scale quantum
physics and quantum tunneling comes into existence.
Conclusion:
Moore’s law will eventually slows down. We need to find an alternative to Si chip
technology one such solution to extend Moore’s Law beyond Si technology is
MOLETRONICS i.e. Molecular Electronics.

4. What is Moletronics ?
Moletronics or Molecular Electronics is a field mainly focuses of assembling molecular
electronic components using molecules as a building block.
Working Principle
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 tremendous advancement throughout their
development from the SSI to the latest ULSI, moletronics seems to the best bet when it
comes to performance. Thus, moletronics uses molecular blocks as a substitute to the
traditional silicon. Everything else remains more and the same in
the integrated circuits. Also, to use them as a switch only one electron is sufficient to
either turn ON or OFF these molecular transistors.

5. What we achieved ?
As of now, basic electronic components such as transistors, diodes, rectifiers, resistors
along with molecules which can transport electrons acts as wires have been made
using molecules successfully.
The two main conducting molecules are polyphenylenes, carbon-nanotubes and
insulating are aliphatic molecules.
1940: Robert Muliken and
Albert SG proposed theory on
charge transfer using
molecules
1974: Mark Ratner and
Ari Aviram published a
paper “Molecular
Rectifier”
1988: Ari Aviram
described about single
molecule FET’s.
1990: Mark Reed along
with the coworkers
added few hundred
molecules
2000: Major Breakthrough
Shirakawa, Heeger and
MacDiarmid won the
Nobel prize in physics for
the development of highly
conductive polyacetelene.
History of Moletronics

6. Molecular Components
1. Molecular Transistor
Here, benzene molecule is attached between two gold
contacts.
By applying the voltage to gold contacts we can change
the molecule’s energy states and
hence control current flowing through it.
2. Molecular Wire
The structure is of a Mo6S9−xIx molecular
wire. Mo atoms are blue, iodine atoms are
red and sulphur atoms are yellow.
Here, electrons can flow through the
molecule.

7. 4. Carbon Nanotubes
Another molecule that can be used as a wire is
carbon nanotube.
Carbon nanotubes have diameter in nanometers
ranging in conductive properties with very good
conduction to excellent insulators.
3. Photochromic Molecular Switches
A photochromic switch is a molecule which
can be optically switched between two
isomers (different structural forms made up of
the same atoms) with measurably different
optical properties when an UV or visible light
is being irradiated onto the molecule.

8. Advantages
1. Since they are tiny they require low power.
2. Molecules self-assemble themselves.
3. They are reconfigurable.
4. Our main purpose is to integrate more components on to chip can be
achieved.
5. More components can be integrated as transistor size is reduced.

9. Disadvantages
1. Wiring the molecules is not possible.
2. Measuring of single molecule is difficult.
3. Applying voltages to these nanometer sized molecules will be
difficult as small voltages can result into larger electric field at
that level.
4. It will be difficult in connecting a moletronics device into
conventional bulk electronic device.
5. Finding errors and interconnection between molecules will be
difficult.

10. Conclusion
• Moletronics has wide range of applications in Physics, Chemistry,
Electronics etc. using molecular components we can achieve THz
processing speeds.
• Due to its potential applications some big tech companies are
already planning to develop molecular components.
• To commercialize moletronics it will take years but we must
appreciate the progress in this direction.
“ The Next Big Thing is very, very small. Picture trillions of transistors,
processors so fast their speed is measured in terahertz, infinite capacity,
zero cost. It's the dawn of a new technological revolution – and the death of
silicon.”

11. Thankyou