Research

Electric-field-driven dual-functional molecular switches in tunnel junctions

Electric-field-driven dual-functional molecular switches in tunnel junctions
A challenge in miniaturized electronics is to reduce power consumption which causes overheating and shortens battery life-times in our electronic devices. Circuits are generally built by connecting a diode switch in series with a memory element, called one diode–one resistor. This approach, however, consumes large amounts of power and makes it more difficult to shrink the devices. By combining both diode and memory within one circuit component, both power consumption and device size can be reduced dramatically, opening the door to ubiquitous ultra-high density computing. A research team led by Professor Christian Nijhuis report a new type of switch that works as both a diode and a memory element which is just 2 nm thick, the length of the molecule, and works with a low drive voltage of less than 1 V. This discovery of multiple functions all within a single molecule may help speed-up development of new technologies involving artificial synapses and neural networks. This work is published in Nature Materials. Read more about their new discovery here.

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