Addressing nanowire arrays

October 24, 2005

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Smaller circuitry means smaller, faster, lower-power computers.

One way to make smaller circuits is to use densely-packed nanowires, which can be as small as a few millionths of a millimeter.

A big challenge in developing nanoelectronics is connecting molecular-scale circuits to today's merely microscopic electronics. The key is being able to control a large number of nanowires with a much smaller number of larger wires. Researchers from the California Institute of Technology have made a nanowire demultiplexer that is easier to fabricate than previous designs.

Several nanowire demultiplexers have been developed in recent years, most notably by teams at Hewlett-Packard Labs and Harvard University (see HP maps molecular memory, TRN July 18, 2001 and Chemicals map nanowire arrays, TRN January 28/February 4, 2004).

The Caltech demultiplexer is simpler than its predecessors because it does not require mapping addresses or chemically modifying specific parts of the nanowires. It uses a binary tree structure that allows 20 wires to address around 1,000 nanowires and 40 wires to address around 1,000,000 nanowires.

The device could also be used to connect arrays of nanoelectrodes to control circuitry that would make biosensors capable of measuring the inner workings of cells.

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