Question

From your own perspective, set an optimistic scenario (within the next 20 years) where molecular electronics can have a positive impact on everyday technology (mention concrete examples). Justify your answer. Then done the previous approach, discuss (pessimistically) the reasons why they might not happen (at least within the timeframe). Justify your answer.

Answer 1

Molecular electronics is the study and application of molecular building blocks for the fabrication of electronic components. This field requires the knowledge of Physics, Chemistry, Material science. during the last two decades  molecular electronics has generated much excitement due to the prospect of size reduction in electronics offered by molecular-level control of properties. Since conventional electronics are traditionally made from bulk materials, so molecular electronics seems a promisiong future. With the advancement of scince and technology i.e. nanotechnology , spintronics we can predict a optimistic scenario within next 20 years as a lot of research is going on to find the possible molecular materials which can be used in the filed of molecualar electronics.

The emerging field of molecular electronics could take our definition of portable to the next level, enabling the construction of tiny circuits from molecular components. In these highly efficient devices, individual molecules would take on the roles currently played by comparatively-bulky wires, resistors and transistors.

However, the continuous demand for more computing power, together with the inherent limits of the present day lithographic methods make the transition seem unavoidable. Currently, the focus is on discovering molecules with interesting properties and on finding ways to obtain reliable and reproducible contacts between the molecular components and the bulk material of the electrodes.

But this promising future is not so easy as there are lots of hardle to cross like, One of the biggest problems with measuring on single molecules is to establish reproducible electrical contact with only one molecule and doing so without shortcutting the electrodes. Because the current photolithographictechnology is unable to produce electrode gaps small enough to contact both ends of the molecules tested (in the order of nanometers) alternative strategies are put into use. These include molecular-sized gaps called break junctions, in which a thin electrode is stretched until it breaks.