from the Molectronics dept.
The cover and a pair of feature articles in the February 2002 issue of Materials Today, an international magazine devoted to the latest research and policy news for materials researchers in academia, industry and government, highlight "Molecular electronics: the future of computing". The two feature articles are available on the MT website, as Adobe Acrobat PDF files. (Note: the PDF files have been print-disabled, so you can only view the articles online.)
- "Introducing molecular electronics" by Mark Ratner. This article introduces the basic concepts of molecular electronics, looks at the promise that molecular electronics holds, and describes the fundamental questions that still have to be answered for these promises to be fulfilled. Ratner, a Professor of Chemistry at Northwestern University, was one of the visionary co-inventors of the concept and scientific study of molecular electronics. He was awarded the 2001 Feynman for Theoretical Work at the Ninth Foresight Conference on Molecular Nanotechnology in November 2001.
- "Moletronics: future electronics" by Kwan Kwok with DARPA and James Ellenbogen of MITRE Corp. This extensive and well-illustrated article surveys recent work in the field of molecular electronics.
- "Nanowires take the prize" (not available online) is a news item and interview of Charles Lieber, a molecular devices researcher at Harvard who was awarded the 2001 Feynman Prize for Experimantal Work. "We have these things as chemical or building blocks there to be manipulated. You can combine things that you just didnít think you could combine. You can bring functionality to the table that really isnít possible by other means," says Lieber.
