by Najib Altawell

Created on: May 31, 2008   Last Updated: April 03, 2009

What is Nanoelectronic?

Nanoelectronic is concerned with understanding and exploiting the properties of devices, which have dimensions at the nanometre scale.

Microelectronics will gradually evolve into nano-electronic. In fact, this has already happened as can be seen from the smallest feature size of present integrated circuits, which is below of one micrometer. It is currently believed that optical lithography can be used for ground rules down to 150 nm and might even be used for the 100 nm generation and below. This would imply an increasing process and mask complexity, and consequently, increasing the cost.

Molecular-scale electronic has been widely touted as "the next step" in electronic miniaturization, with theory and research suggesting that single molecules may have the capability to take the place of today's much larger electronic components.

Therefore, what are the advantages of scaling down of devices?

Speed of operation - Reduction of the parasitic capacitances associated with non-conductive paths in an electronic device leads to a higher cut-off frequency. This enables a device to operate at much higher speeds. Density - An obvious advantage. This reduces size and cuts materials cost. Power dissipation - This is reduced due to lesser resistance in interconnects and currents flowing in smaller circuits. In lasers, the use of lower dimensional systems reduces the threshold current due to improved density of states distribution. New applications - This enables certain uses, currently speculative, but very much in the offing.

Integrated circuits are also known as microelectronic. The term micro derives from micro-fabrication technology, which embraces all highly sophisticated techniques like optical- and electron-beam lithography, metallization, implantation and etching that allow generating structures on the scale of one micrometer.

In the early 1970's, two scientists, Ari Aviram and Mark Ratner, began to envision electronic circuit elements made from single molecules and described in detail how they might function. This was the origin of the field of molecular electronics, now sometimes called molecular-scale electronics.

The emergence of molecular electronics and spintronics is providing a challenge to traditional electronic manufacturing techniques. Significant reduction in size and the sheer enormity of numbers in manufacturing are the benefits of molecular electronics. Scientists predict that computers will be assembled using molecules in the future,

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