A group of Yale University researchers say they have built a single-molecule switch that is a big step toward a small calculator. Professor Mark Reed demonstrated Oct. 12 a “single-molecule electret” that can change from one steady state to another. This involves inserting a gadolinium atom inside a carbon-based sphere and then applying an electric field to activate and deactivate the switch.
Reid collaborated with researchers at Rensselaer Poly and on the continent. He says, “The module acts as if it has two stable polarization states” and can even be used to “Memorize it”. This means that it is highly likely that CPUs and memory chips will be built on a molecular scale in the future.
It should be noted that there is still a long way to go before a molecular calculator can be built, but this is an encouraging first step. The fact that such a machine has proven to be feasible opens the door to more research in the future, which will hopefully benefit future generations.
This is important because the computing world runs on switches, CPUs that are essentially filled with billions of micro-switches. In order to make our machines faster, their brains need to get smaller-and Intel is currently working to make that happen. After all, the smaller you get, the more the laws of physics get in the way, so being able to jump to the molecular level can yield amazing levels of performance.
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