36
nanotimes
10-01 :: January 2010
News in Brief
Molecular Transistor //
Observation of Molecular Orbital Gating
A
group of scientists has succeeded in creating the voltage they applied to it through the contacts. By
first transistor made from a single molecule. manipulating the energy states, they were able to
The team, which includes researchers from Yale control the current passing through the molecule.
University and the Gwangju Institute of Science and “It’s like rolling a ball up and over a hill, where the
Technology in South Korea. The team, including ball represents electrical current and the height of the
Mark Reed, the Harold Hodgkinson Professor of hill represents the molecule’s different energy states,”
Engineering & Applied Science at Yale, showed that a Reed said. “We were able to adjust the height of the
benzene molecule attached to gold contacts could hill, allowing current to get through when it was low,
behave just like a silicon transistor. and stopping the current when it was high.” In this
way, the team was able to use the molecule in much
The researchers were able to manipulate the the same way as regular transistors are used.
molecule’s different energy states depending on the
“We’re not about to create the next generation of
integrated circuits,” he said. “But after many years of
work gearing up to this, we have fulfilled a decade-
long quest and shown that molecules can act as
transistors.”
Hyunwook Song, Youngsang Kim, Yun Hee Jang,
Heejun Jeong, Mark A. Reed & Takhee Lee: Observati-
on of molecular orbital gating, In: Nature, Vol. 462(2009),
Number 7276, December 24, 2009, Pages 957-1088,
DOI:10.1038/nature08639:

http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature08639

http://www.eng.yale.edu/reedlab/
Image: Engineers applied a voltage to a benzene molecu-
le, allowing them to raise and lower its energy states and
demonstrate that the molecule could be used exactly like
a traditional transistor. © Hyunwook Song and Takhee Lee
Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53