Modeling of circuits and architectures for molecular electronics

Abstract

The considerable progress of recent years have demonstrated the potential of molecular electronics to first enhance the capabilities of silicon electronics and, possibly, to substitute it when the intrinsic physical limits of scalability will be reached by CMOS technology. Despite such advances, a real alternative will only be possible if novel circuit and architecture concepts will be developed, which are fully suited to molecular devices. The purpose of the present paper is to discuss the theoretical activities carried out at the Institute for Nanoelectronics of the Technische Universität München in the field of molecular devices and circuits, critically assessing such work with respect to what has been proposed in the literature. Two approaches to molecular electronics will be analyzed. On the one side, we will deal with transistors based on organic films, and present circuit solutions based on inverters as basic blocks. On the other side, we will consider single molecule devices and the architectures that might allow system implementations.

Monotype Organic Dual Threshold Voltage Using Different OTFT Geometries

“…Unipolar based circuits which present either n-type or p-type OSC, require a pull-up (n) or pull-down (p) load transistor polarized in ON state and, an input-controlled drive transistor which logically inverts its input [52,53]. Therefore, for a low voltage (in terms of Boolean algebra, it is known as '0') the input produces a high voltage (in terms of Boolean algebra, it is known as '1') at the output, and vice versa [54].…”

Multiple‐valued computing by dipole‐dipole coupled proteins

“…The protein elements of the architectures are integrated together with dipole‐dipole coupling (the method is described in a detailed way in previous studies and in Section of this paper), since Coulomb coupling, which takes advantage of the interactions between the electronic charges of the neighboring molecules, is a potentially promising way for molecular device integration . The potential application of photon pulse and electric field‐effect Coulomb coupled molecular structures for logic computations is not a new idea; it has been discussed extensively in the literature …”