NEW YORK, N.Y., and HAIFA, Israel, February 13, 1998 DResearchers at the
Technion-Israel Institute of Technology have used strands of DNA, the biological
molecule that makes up genes, to assemble tiny particles of silver into a
conductive wire 1,000 times thinner than a human hair. The research, reported in
the February 19, 1998 issue of Nature, is an important step toward the next
quantum leap in electronics miniaturization. Making that leap is the ultimate
goal of researchers in the emerging field of nanoelectronics.
The nanocircuits of the future will consist of wires, transistors and
other components with dimensions measured in billionths of a meter. (One
nanometer or a billionth of a meter, is about the length of five carbon atoms
laid end to end.) By packing many more components closer together, scientists
could produce computer chips that are much faster than today's, and far more
sophisticated.
Scientists have already used DNA to assemble minute nanoparticles of
semiconductors and other electronic material into crystal-like lattices and
other orderly structures. But nobody until now has made a working electronic
component.
"Our wire actually passes a current. This is the first demonstration of
self assembly of any functioning electronic component," said physicist Uri
Sivan, who conducted the research with Erez Braun, another physicist, and
chemist Yoav Eichen.
Wires are the foundation of any circuit because they link circuit
components to each other and to the outside world. The Technion team constructed
their prototype nanowire between two gold electrodes separated by a narrow gap
of 12 microns, about one-tenth the width of a human hair. They synthesized
strands of DNA that linked themselves together to form a kind of construction
scaffolding between the electrodes. Since DNA by itself does not pass current,
they
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Contact: Martha Molnar
martha@ats.org
212 307-2595
American Society for Technion - Israel Institute of Technology
18-Feb-1998
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