An international team of scientists has created a field-effect transistor (FET) with a channel that consists of just a single molecule. The transistor is switched on and off by the arrangement of individual atoms around the channel. This isn’t the first single-molecule transistor, though the individual-atom gating is rather novel.
Take a moment to appreciate the image at the top of the story, captured with a scanning tunnelling microscope (STM). In the middle is a phthalocyanine (H2Pc) molecule, a large molecule that is the basis of many blue/green dyes. Around the outside, arranged in a hexagon, are 12 charged indium (In+1) atoms. The molecule and atoms rest on an indium arsenide substrate.
Don’t get too excited about the prospect of single-molecule transistors being commercialised, though. As you may know, a transistor consists of more than just a channel (the molecule) and the gate (the hexagon of atoms). There also needs to be a source and a drain. The drain is the indium arsenide substrate; no big deal. The source, however, is the tip of a giant STM: a room-sized cryogenic multi-million-pound device that can only really be found at specialised research institutions.
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