19 August 2009

Computer chips could go organic

Organic nanoscale wires could be an alternative to silicon in computer chips.

Nanoscale electric contacts out of organic and inorganic nanowires are now under development, said nanochemists from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Nano-Science Center, Department of Chemistry.

In the contact, researchers crossed the wires like Mikado pick-up sticks and coupled several contacts together in an electric circuit. By doing this, researchers produced prototype computer electronics on the nanoscale.

Today, the foundation of computers, mobile phones, and other electronic apparatus is silicon transistors. A transistor acts as an on- and off- contact, and there are millions of tiny transistors on every computer chip. However, we are reaching the limit for how small we can make transistors out of silicon.

Organic materials already work in other electronics like flat screens, such as OLED (Organic Light Emitting Diode). The new results show how small and advanced devices made of organic materials can become.

“We have succeeded in placing several transistors consisting of nanowires together on a nano device,” said Thomas Bjørnholm, director of the Nano-Science Center, Department of Chemistry at University of Copenhagen, who is working with the Chinese Academy of Sciences. “It is a first step towards realization of future electronic circuitry based on organic materials—a possible substitute for today’s silicon-based technologies. This offers the possibility of making computers in different ways in the future.”

Researchers have used organic nanowires combined with the tin oxide nanowires. As in a Mikado game, the nanowires cross in a device consisting of four-six active transistor moieties. The devices have a low operational current, high mobility, and good stability, and that is essential in order for the material to be able to compete with silicon.

“This work is the first significant result of our collaboration with the researchers from the Nano-Science Center,” said Professor Wenping Hu, Chinese Academy of Sciences. “It is a good starting point for our new Danish-Chinese research center for molecular nano-electronics, and it underlines the fact that we can complement each other and that together we can achieve exciting and important results.”

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