Chip-building with molecules

A prestigious European 'Grant' of 1.75 million euros. Wilfred van der Wiel (34) couldn't have wished for a better start to his professorship. The money will be used for exploring new avenues of research in nano-electronics.

Just one day. That is how long Wilfred van der Wiel had been a professor when the good news arrived from Brussels: the European Research Council (ERC) had approved his application for a 'Starting Independent Researcher Grant'. The grant, worth 1.75 million euros over five years, will get Van der Wiel's department off to a flying start in a new research field, already opened by an earlier VIDI grant from the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research. Since 2005 Van der Wiel has been Director of the Nano-Electronics Programme of the MESA+ Institute for Nanotechnology at the University of Twente.

Beyond Moore

The brand new professor intends to explore 'hybrid' nano-electronics. In plain terms, he will develop electronics that combine two technologies: the existing technology for making chips and a new technology that uses molecules as building blocks. Not exactly a natural match. But vitally important says Van der Wiel: "The dimensions on the current generation of chips are already within nanometre range. So, basically, we are already talking about nano-electronics. If you want to make the parts even smaller, you will get unpredictable effects. For example, through minimal contamination. Secondly, refinement of existing chip technology is getting more complex all the time." For decades, miniaturisation forged ahead with the clockwork-like regularity of 'Moore's Law'. Without fast-moving miniaturisation digital photography would not have taken flight and we would not be able to store our entire music collection in an iPod. Computers are faster and more powerful than ever, while the price has fallen dramatically. If it is left to Wilfred van der Wiel, things will get a lot tinier, but we have to build with molecules from the bottom up.

Self-organisation

"I want to take a close look at how Nature manages things. Making molecules with a specific electronic function - a transistor, a diode - is one thing, but how do you organise these molecules neatly, like the parts on a chip? Nature does this through self-organisation and self-assemblage. That's what I want to use. Under the right chemical conditions you can actually get the molecules lined up without direct intervention." That matters, because when you look at the design of a modern chip - for a mobile phone, say - you see a true street map on one square centimetre, complete with a multi-layered 'road network' for connecting up the parts. Maximum use is made of the surface. If you want to work with molecules in the same way, then organisation is essential: "I want to give the molecules conductive strings to connect them with one another or the outside world. Conventional top-down technology will again come in useful here."

On demand

And the ultimate aim? "Electronics that can be steered 'per electron' and which can be used to make light 'on demand', photon by photon. We have a long way to go before we reach that landmark, but the Starting Grant will enable me to take some fundamental steps that could prove decisive. There is nothing new about the idea of molecules as electronic parts, but so far no-one has managed to gain effective control of the process. Statistically, a percentage of the switches have the required functions, but we don't have the technology at the moment to control the geometry on a scale of a few nanometres. We need to find ways to develop and improve that control." Until now, Van der Wiel has conducted his experiments at extremely low temperatures - only one quarter of a degree above the absolute zero point of minus 273 degrees Celsius - but once he has a better grip on the process, he can switch to room temperature. And that is crucially important if, in the future, we are all to benefit from and enjoy the single-molecule electronics that he envisages.

For more information on the Nano-Electronics research group led by Wilfred van der Wiel see http://ne.ewi.utwente.nl

For more information on the MESA+ Institute for Nanotechnology see www.mesaplus.utwente.nl

For information on the Starting Grant see the press release and the ERC website: http://erc.europa.eu.

 

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