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Unimolecular and Supramolecular Electronics II pp 39–84Cite as

Unimolecular Electronic Devices

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Part of the book series: Topics in Current Chemistry ((TOPCURRCHEM,volume 313))

Abstract

The first active electronic components used vacuum tubes with appropriately-shaped electrodes, then junctions of appropriately-doped Ge, Si, or GaAs semiconductors. Electronic components can now be made with appropriately-designed organic molecules. As the commercial drive to make ever-smaller and faster circuits approaches the 3-nm limit, these unimolecular organic devices may become more useful than doped semiconductors. Here we discuss the electrical contacts between metallic electrodes and organic molecular components, and survey representative organic wires composed of conducting groups and organic rectifiers composed of electron-donor and -acceptor groups, and the Aviram-Ratner proposal for unimolecular rectification. Molecular capacitors and amplifiers are discussed briefly. Molecular electronic devices are not only ultimately small (<3 nm in all directions) and fast, but their excited states may be able to decay by photons, avoiding the enormous heat dissipation endured by Si-based components that decay by phonons. An all-organic computer is an ultimate, but more distant, goal.

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Acknowledgments

This work was achieved by the diligence and insight of so many colleagues, students, and post-doctoral fellows, to whom we owe an immense debt of gratitude, and facilitated by several grants from the United States National Science Foundation (the most recent being NSF-08-48206).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory for Molecular Electronics, Department of Chemistry, The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL, 35487-0336, USA

    Robert M. Metzger & Daniell L. Mattern

  2. Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, The University of Mississippi, University, Mississippi, MS, 38677, USA

    Daniell L. Mattern

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  1. Robert M. Metzger
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  1. , Department of Chemistry, The University of Alabama, Office 210A, Lloyd Hall, Tuscaloosa, 35487, USA

    Robert M. Metzger

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Metzger, R.M., Mattern, D.L. (2011). Unimolecular Electronic Devices. In: Metzger, R. (eds) Unimolecular and Supramolecular Electronics II. Topics in Current Chemistry, vol 313. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/128_2011_178

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