What is Moletronics Technology : Working & Its Applications

Generally, electronics components are made with expensive bulk electronic materials but these materials are costly. To overcome this drawback, moletronics technology is developed because this technology uses a single molecule to build a stable structure to decrease the size of the components.

Moletronics technology mainly allows electronic & structural properties of molecule/silicon atoms. The present inorganic electronic material cannot produce future electronic components with high speed, efficiency, tiny size, etc. Making electronic components with organic material has several benefits like power, size, cost, etc. Moletronics technology uses organic materials instead of Si so that it reduces the component size and generates memory components & processors with high speed.

What is Moletronics Technology?

An invisible technology like moletronics is the combination of molecules & electronics is known as molecular electronics or Moletronics. The molecule is made with atoms and it is a tiny particle of compound or element.

Moletronics is the latest technology after ULSI technology & it performs by using molecules to make electronic components work like transistors, diodes, logic gates, etc. For the fabrication of active & passive components, molecular building blocks are used like resistors & transistors.

Molecular is an electronics branch that utilizes single molecules otherwise a collection of molecules to execute a similar function through the active otherwise passive electronic components. This technology uses organic compounds which have electronic properties. So, moletronics is used to replace bulk electronics.

Moletronics or Molecular electronics signify the ultimate challenge within the miniaturization of the device. The molecular electronics concept has stimulated great excitement in both science fiction & between scientists.

This is due to the size reduction within electronics which is accessible through molecular properties. Molecular electronics provide resources to expand Moore’s Law ahead of the foresee edges of small-scale predictable Si ICs. This technology is used to implement one or only some molecules to perform like switches, logic devices & connections in upcoming computational devices.

We know that every year fabrication of the number of transistors on a single chip is doubling. So according to the law of Moor’s it is stated that by raising the economic investment, the Si chip size will be reduced. As a result, it is understandable that after some years the conventional silicon integrated circuits will be highly expensive.

For different integration methods, the number of transistors and components are integrated which is given below.

• For SSI or Small Scale Integration – 1 to 2 components
• For MSI or Medium Scale Integration – 20 components
• For LSI or Large Scale Integration – 50 to 300 components
• For VLSI or Very Large Scale Integration, it ranges from 400 to 10k
• For ULSI or Ultra Large Scale Integration, it is above >10k
• After ULSI technology ends, moletronics technology will come

Moletronics Technology Working Principle

The moletronics working principle is similar to the usual Si fabricated chips but the main dissimilarity between these two is workability. Once the conventional Si ICs have exposed marvelous progress during their development from the different integration techniques like the small scale to ultra-scale, this technology is best due to its best performance.

Therefore, moletronics technology uses molecular blocks as a substitute for the usual silicon. In the ICs, everything will be the same, and also to use them like a switch simply one electron is enough to control these molecular transistors.

Moletronics History

In the year 1940, scientists like Albert Szent-Gyorgy & Robert Mulliken implemented the charge transfer theory concept with the help of molecules. In 1974, Avi Aviram & Mark Ratner demonstrated a molecular rectifier theoretically in their publication.

In 1988 Avi Aviram described a single-molecule field-effect transistor. After that, Forrest Carter implemented a further concept regarding logic gate based on a single molecule. J.K Gimzewsky & C.Joachim studied & experimented with the single-molecule conductance in IBM.

In the year 1990, Mark Reed & coworkers added few more molecules. After that, MacDiarmid, Heeger & Shirakawa, won the Nobel Prize in 2000, physics subject for extremely conductive polyacetylene development.

The moletronics technology uses molecules due to the following reasons.

• Molecules are tiny in size
• Electrons are restricted within molecules.
• These are flexible & identical
• These are self assemble

Moletronics Classification

Moletronics is two types like the following.

• Molecular scale electronics
• Molecular materials for electronics

Molecular scale electronics mainly use a single molecule. The best examples of this are transistors, diodes, etc. Molecular materials for electronics mainly deal with bulk material properties. The best examples are OLED, conductive polymer, etc

Moletronics Devices

Moletronics devices mainly include molecular wire, molecular transistor, molecular diodes, etc. These devices will replace the usual semiconductor devices in the future.

Molecular Wire

Molecular wire plays a key role in connecting the various molecular parts in an electrical circuit. At present, research on molecular wires is going on. The main problem is the complexity to connect the molecular wires through the electrodes.

Molecular Transistors

Transistors are mainly used for amplifying or switching the signals. As compared to electronic components, it is completely dissimilar. These transistors are dual either ON/OFF. Generally, in normal transistors, the gate terminal controls the charge carrier’s conduction in between two terminals like source & drain.

However, in these transistors, the gate terminal controls an electron to ON/OFF by changing the molecular orbital’s energy. The single molecule’s size is extremely small. As a result, its charging is enough to control the transistor. Further, these transistors will replace the Si transistor.

Molecular Diodes

Molecule diodes mainly include an electronic donor & acceptor. The donor at one end & the acceptor at the remaining end will cause the current flow throughout molecules.

Advantages

The advantages of moletronics include the following.

• Its size is nanometer range like 1 to 100nm.
• Power
• Manufacturing cost is low
• Less temperature manufacturing
• Stereochemistry
• Synthetic Flexibility
• Moletronics is used to integrate large circuits
• The molecular switch performs computational functions.
• New Functionalities.
• Less power utilization.
• Capable to incorporate large circuits.
• Re-configurable.
• The Time cycle is 1fs
• For conduction, only a single electron is required
• The integration scale is 1013 gates/cm2No no need for an external power supply.

Disadvantages

The disadvantages of moletronics include the following.

• It is included through Si substrate.
• Verification through experimental is difficult & it is hard to discover the errors as they are incorporated at a small scale. As a result, it is difficult to discover the error from the devices.
• It is hard to decide the single-molecule resistance in terms of experimental & theoretical.
• Some molecules can be measured at zero temperature which is extremely energy-consuming.
• It is difficult to perform direct categorization because single-molecule imaging is not possible in several experimental devices.
• It is hard to fix a moletronic device into usual electronic components.
• Fabrication should be controlled through particular tolerance.
• Moletronics is hard to connect between two components on a molecular level.

Moletronics Technology Applications

The applications of moletronics include the following.

• It is applicable in a wide range like electronics, physics, medical devices, chemistry, etc.
• Moletronics devices replace the Si-based ICS
• Moletronics uses some molecules to perform the task of logic devices, switches in future electronic devices.
• The speed of conventional computers mostly depends on the electron’s speed while moving in between several devices.
• Transistors processors, with speed in the terahertz range, are highly efficient will be produced in the future.

Thus, this is all about an overview of molecular electronics which is known as moletronics. This technology comes under the section of nanoelectronics & nanotechnology that is accountable for the design and development of electronics with nano building blocks. The invention of electronic devices & integrated circuits is achievable because of the developments in molecular electronics. In molecular electronics, material & molecular scale are two sub-sections, used in artificial intelligence (AI) & high-tech devices. Molecular electronics technology is also called moletronics, molecular-scale electronics & moletronics. Here is a question for you, what are the components of moletronics?