Molecular switches get connected at Liverpool

from the first-the-Beatles-now-nanotech dept.
Bryan Hall points out that Environmental Network News is running a UPI story : With the flip of a gold molecular switch, scientists moved a step closer to bringing nanotechnology, with its promises of cell-sized robots, ultra-dense computer memories and other wonders, to the real world. The creation of a switch 1,000 times smaller than a red blood cell, described in the British journal Nature, goes to the heart of the electronic industry's drive toward faster, more efficient components…The ease of fabrication of these switches, which can be made to self-assemble, is crucial in nanotechnology, the scientists said. "It must be stressed that what we have done is to demonstrate a principle…Integration and communication to the external world will depend, in our view, on a confluence of technologies that is currently developing." The Nature journal article requires free registration.