Thursday, 31st March 2005 (3118 views)

The University of Oregon (UO) has received a patent that could lead to a new class of nanoscale electronics and optics made from nanoparticles.

A patent for a greener, faster way to synthesise gold particles has already been obtained by the university.

UO chemist Jim Hutchison developed the process with two of his students, he commented: "This has been a prolonged effort. We reported this invention in 1997 and the original work began in 1996. We had a concept, we reduced it to practice and now we've received a patent on it. It's exciting to have all that effort pay off."

The new developments could include nanoscale transistors which operate efficiently at room temperature and are made up of a chemically functionalised gold core, working on a mix of classical and quantum mechanical properties.

Mr Hutchison explained the new patent is about "a greener approach to creating self-assembling structures" and adopting a "bottom-up" approach rather than "chiselling or etching away material" as is the current case with silicon chips.

Devices need to be put together using a biopolymer DNA as a template and Mr Hutchison explained how it works: "If you think about a structure of gold dots on a DNA strand, it's like a wire with a whole bunch of minute cuts in it, about 15 angstroms in size.

"In order for electrons to travel down a nanoparticle chain, they have to jump or tunnel from one particle to the next. As a result, these nanochains have different properties than a wire would have. That's why you can make transistors out of them."

This behaviour is actually a problem when using present manufacturing techniques but is a positive factor when working on a nanoscale.

 

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