Smaller electronics are critical to developing better computers and
And yet, together with international colleagues, Mark Reed, professor of electrical engineering and applied physics, demonstrated a single-molecule electret with functional memory.
Most electrets are made frompiezoelectric materials, such as those that reproduce sound in speakers. In an electret, all dipoles - pairs of opposite electric charges - spontaneously line up in the same direction. Using an electric field, you can change their direction.
“The question has always been how small these electrets could be made, which are essentially memory devices,” Reed explains.
Researchers inserted a gadolinium (Gd) atom insidecarbon buckyball, a 32-sided molecule also known as buckminsterfullerene. When scientists placed this design into a transistor-type structure, they saw the transfer of a single electron and used this to understand its energy state. The real breakthrough was the discovery that an electric field could be used to switch energy state from a stable state to some other state.
“This molecule acts as if it had two stable states of polarization,” explains Reed.
Reid emphasized that the existing structurethe device is not currently applicable to any device, but it proves that molecular science has a lot to develop for applications in technology.
“We have proved that it is possible to create twostates that cause spontaneous polarization, and two switchable states, ”concludes the author of the study. “And this can lead to new ideas. For example, shrink memory to literally a single molecular level. Now that we understand that this is possible, we can move on to new developments. "
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