Molecular Electronics:
The Future of Electronics

How Molecular Junctions Might Work

When studying junctions, it is difficult to observe the flow of current in the case of multiple molecules. It would be like trying to keep track of the movements of each car during rush hour in a major city (see above). Because of this difficulty, we normally study the single molecule case. Even though there is only a single molecule, there are various ways of making these junctions. We already mentioned using a linking group, but another method uses a process called electromigration to cause very thin slits (a billionth of a meter) in gold wires and places a molecule in this gap. Even though the multi-molecule case is complicated, the potential results dictate that we should take a closer look at these nanotube highways.

© 2006 M. Busuttil, I. Kandikov, M. Lubrick, J. Mutus, J. Nantais