NANO-MOLECULAR ELECTRONICS - IDEAS AND EXPERIMENTS

Two designs for information processing devices, comprised of organised assemblies of organic molecules; are described. Information is repres ented by charges in molecular layers. In the inchworm memory bits are shifted between the layers by electric fields; in the optical shift re gister, bits are shifted by light pulses. The devices are designed to be interfaceable to existing silicon technology. Photoconduction exper iments are described on molecules assembled by the Langmuir Blodgett t echnique, which are able to measure electron transport properties, at a molecular level, and on a 35 ps time scale. Interlayer and intralaye r intermolecular tunnelling rates are determined, and related to molec ular parameters. Control of electron position, at a molecular scale, h as been achieved by means of using blocking molecular bilayers.