ASTRONOMY

The article highlights work in Dr. Lieber's laboratory and elsewhere that takes advantage of the unique properties of electronic materials at the nanoscale -- on the order of billionths of a meter. Researchers are actively utilizing these properties to build complex architectures and novel devices with the potential to dramatically surpass any existing devices. As described in the article, already researchers in Dr. Lieber's laboratory have used scaleable processes to create a myriad of devices, from nanoelectronic transistors to molecular sensors to light emitting diodes. "The key to making semiconductor integrated devices more economical, more powerful, and in some cases, more creative, is making small circuit feature sizes -- currently, on the order of tenths of a micron or, in other words, tenths of a millionths of a meter -- even smaller. To do this, we need to circumvent photolithography, the current industrial process. We need to work on the nanoscale, tens to hundreds of times smaller," said Dr. Lieber. A study by the Semiconductor Industry Association supports Dr. Lieber and predicts that photolithography will hit fundamental limitations in the near future. "It becomes evident that most of the known technological capabilities will be approaching or have reached their limits," says the introduction to the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors. "Unfortunately, photolithography and even cutting edge alternatives that the semiconductor industry will presumably implement in the coming years, such as extreme-ultraviolet lithography, are fundamentally constrained. They merely extend current ways of making electronic devices. We run up against the wall of quantum mechanics and physics as we get smaller and smaller -- we're running out of room at the bottom. The only way that we will be able to continue the incredible growth and future promise of the industry is to develop radically new nanoscale technologies," added Larry Bock, President and CEO of Nanosys. As the article points out, nanoscale electronics leads the field of contenders of next generation technologies for the electronics industry. Also described are recent advances in flexible design processes for the building blocks of nanoscale electronic devices. These offer a glimpse of entirely new ways to take advantage of novel nanoscale properties. Beyond semiconductor and electronic devices, researchers are also exploring other types of devices, such as extremely sensitive sensors for biomolecules. Even more intriguing is the possibility that these devices will enable whole new computing concepts, such as quantum computing. "Theoretical studies have shown how quantum computing could solve a number of important computing problems that cannot be readily solved using digital electronics -- chip-based implementation of quantum computers could revolutionize many areas of science and technology," Dr. Lieber added. "I see nanotechnology at a comparable stage as biotechnology was in the early-1980s. We have worked to bring in the best available technology to create a broad foundation on which Nanosys will create a revolution in electronics, optoelectronics, and molecular sensing," stated Bock.