30 May 2002

Nanotechnology: Electronics at the atomic scale

Cover art, Felice Frankel.

Two papers this week show the potential of molecules as nanometre-scale electronic components. By varying the structure of specially designed molecules containing transition-metal atoms — cobalt in one case and a pair of vanadium atoms in the other — transistor characteristics can be adjusted and current flow channelled through one quantum state. The cover is a representation of a cobalt-terpyridinyl coordination complex (right) and a divanadium molecule bound to gold electrodes.

Coulomb blockade and the Kondo effect in single-atom transistors
JIWOONG PARK , ABHAY N. PASUPATHY , JONAS I. GOLDSMITH , CONNIE CHANG , YUVAL YAISH , JASON R. PETTA , MARIE RINKOSKI , JAMES P. SETHNA , H�CTOR D. ABRU�A , PAUL L. MCEUEN & DANIEL C. RALPH
Nature 417, 722–725 (2002); doi:10.1038/nature00791
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Kondo resonance in a single-molecule transistor
WENJIE LIANG , MATTHEW P. SHORES , MARC BOCKRATH , JEFFREY R. LONG & HONGKUN PARK
Nature 417, 725–729 (2002); doi:10.1038/nature00790
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Nanotechnology: Electronics and the single atom
SILVANO DE FRANCESCHI & LEO KOUWENHOVEN
The invention of semiconductor transistors in the 1940s revolutionized electronic circuitry. In the new world of 'nanoelectronics', a transistor whose active component is a single atom has now been demonstrated.
Nature 417, 701–702 (2002); doi:10.1038/417701a
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