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NANOTECHNOLOGY

A shift in molecular devices

Nature Electronics volume 3, pages 584–585 (2020)Cite this article

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With the help of a gate electrode to control the charge state of individual molecules on graphene, information can be moved along a one-dimensional molecular chain, mimicking the behaviour of an electronic shift register.

Individual molecules and molecular nanostructures could be used to build future nanoelectronic devices1,2,3,4. Organic molecules are attractive for such purposes because they are cheap, consist of abundant elements, and their valuable features can be optimized via the sophisticated techniques of modern organic synthesis. Their charge transport processes can also be controlled by external stimuli through conformational, chemical and electronic modifications of the molecules, which is key to adding active functionalities to molecular nanodevices. However, in order to develop practical devices several challenging obstacles need to be overcome, including the lack of scalable nanofabrication methods, limited device and operation stabilities, and insufficient control over the state (electronic, conformational or chemical) of the molecular nanostructures. Writing in Nature Electronics, Michael Crommie and colleagues now show that the charge state of molecular arrays on graphene can be precisely controlled by the application of a gate voltage, creating collective charge patterns that can made to function as a charge-based shift register5.

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Fig. 1: A collective charge pattern in a one-dimensional molecular array.

Reproduced with permission from ref. 5, Springer Nature Ltd.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dep. De Física de la Materia Condensada and IFIMAC, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain

    Roberto Otero

  2. IMDEA-Nanoscience, Madrid, Spain

    Roberto Otero

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  1. Roberto Otero
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Correspondence to Roberto Otero.

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The author declares no competing interests.

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Otero, R. A shift in molecular devices. Nat Electron 3, 584–585 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41928-020-00490-9

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