Nano panelist sees molecular devices as next step toward smaller, cheaper, faster devices

Emily M. Smith
ASME NEWS

Nanotechnology will enable manufacturers to build devices at the next level of smaller, faster, cheaper, according to a member of the keynote panel on nanotechnology that will lead off the technical sessions at this year's International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition in New York in November.

James J. Marek, Jr.

James J. Marek, Jr., who is president and chief executive officer of California Molecular Electronics Corp., will be one of three experts on nanotechnology to participate in the keynote panel discussion on Nov. 12.

Marek's company, CALMEC, was formed in 1997 to participate in the development of molecular electronics technology and products created with nanotechnology. He spoke with ASME NEWS recently about the implications and applications of molecular electronics technology.

ASME NEWS: What industries will benefit, or are benefiting already, from the early applications of molecular electronic technology?

Marek: Given that molecular electronics is a new, emerging field and, as such, still in its relative infancy, you won't find it in today's products. But you will in the not-too-distant future. It's hard to imagine an industry that will not benefit from molecular electronics.

The semiconductor, computer, display and telecommunications industries immediately come to mind. Of these, I believe the computer and telecommunications industries will be the early benefactors, primarily in the areas of memory storage and optical switching, respectively.

The demands for smaller, faster, lighter, cheaper are driving today's technologies into areas where it is increasingly difficult to meet the need. Some predict that in the near future these technologies will come to a technological wall beyond which they won't be able to advance.

Microelectronics, however, will be the technology to vault that wall in the area of memory storage, for example. Satisfying the ever-present and increasing demands for more and more memory in smaller and smaller packages at lower and lower costs will be possible with molecular electronic devices.

ASME NEWS: What kinds of products or devices have already been developed with this technology and are in use?

Marek: Molecular electronics is based on the principle that single molecules can perform the functions of electronic devices. Today, just about every one of these functions has been synthesized in a laboratory environment at the molecular level to some degree.

Granted, they are not yet at the stage where these molecular devices are ready for production and can be incorporated into circuits. In fact, some may never directly see the actual light of commercialization. They are enabling technologies — technologies on which commercialized versions will be developed. But the need is defined, the trend is clear, and the maturing process of refining and advancing these designs is moving forward.

ASME NEWS: How rapidly is this technology maturing?

Marek: The concept of molecular electronics has been around for some time — at least 20 years. However, research activities in recent years are showing results that have taken it beyond the realm of just academic curiosity.

We are seeing results in the research laboratories that not only give legitimacy to the early concepts, but demonstrate obvious, attainable applications and benefits. And this maturing process is gaining momentum and making advances almost daily.

Predictions as to the time when you will see molecular electronics as the technology of choice range from five to 20 years, depending on the prognosticator. Although molecular electronics has the potential to cause a revolutionary change in the electronics world, it will more likely be evolutionary in nature.

We will begin to see hybrid circuits, circuits containing both silicon-based devices and molecular-based devices, within the five-year time frame. Eventually, it will all be molecular.

What will be the driving force that brings a molecular-based device into the picture? The inability of silicon-based devices to meet a specific application.

ASME NEWS: You've said that molecular electronic technology will drive worldwide technology and economic growth over the next 25 years. Why? In what way?

Marek: Arguably one can say that the enormous economic boom of the last 25 years has been driven largely by the invention of a single fantastically successful technological device. That device is the semiconductor switch in the form of the field effect transistor.

The heart of the semiconductor industry is the semiconductor logic switch. Because semiconductor switches can be manufactured at very small scales and can be made to perform all desired computational functions in combination, the semiconductor switch has become the fundamental device in all of modern electronics.

This semiconductor logic switch has been scaled down in size, over and over, decade after decade, for the last 40 years, until today, millions of such devices can be integrated onto a single computer chip the size of your little fingernail and mass produced by the millions.

Intel's Pentium IV computer chip, for example, contains more than 15 million semiconductor logic switches and is being manufactured and sold worldwide by the hundreds of millions.

This never-ending shrinkage in the size of the semiconductor switch has brought with it a never-ending growth in computer power at an ever-decreasing cost.

In turn, this has underwritten tremendous gains in productivity that have reached into every aspect of society from manufacturing, to mass communication, to transportation, and even into our homes and offices. Look around. Just about every product you see utilizes these devices. Whole new industries have arisen because of this. Software, cell phones, the Internet and even biotech owe their existence, as we know them, to the advances driven by the semiconductor logic switch.

This is the technological and economic growth that the introduction of molecular electronics will allow to continue. Without it, this growth will slow, maybe even stall.

The market created by product manufacturers who employ molecular electronic processing elements in their products is enormous. If you look at today's computer, peripherals, telecommunications and electronic products market, it's a $380 billion market.

Some of the existing major players will be astute enough to retool to the molecular electronics technologies and adapt their businesses. Some will cling to the old ways and make the best buggy whip possible. But these will lose and pass on. One can easily predict that we will see a whole host of new, technologically advanced players in the future.

ASME NEWS: What are the advantages and disadvantages of molecular electronic technology compared with existing, better-known technologies?

Marek: The dramatic reduction in size and the sheer enormity of numbers in manufacture are highly desirable benefits promised by the field of molecular electronics.

As I said previously, the field of molecular electronics seeks to use individual molecules to perform functions in electronic circuitry now performed by semiconductor devices. Individual molecules are hundreds of times smaller than the smallest features conceivably attainable by semiconductor technology.

Because molecular electronics will tend to create devices that can function in multiple states and in three dimensions — as does our molecular memory device — it is the volume taken up by each electronic element that matters. For this reason, electronic devices constructed from molecules promise to be thousands of times smaller than their semiconductor-based counterparts. Moreover, identical molecules are easily made by the billions and trillions.

The disadvantages? The shakeout in the various industries may be painful if not properly handled, particularly if molecular is not ready to step in as today's technologies begin to falter. But I don't believe that will happen. With the advances being made, molecular electronics will be ready, willing and able.

I really can't honestly think of any technological disadvantages. But then again, given my mindset and commitment to the field, you wouldn't really expect me to, would you?

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