Researchers create self-assembled protein-based logic circuits

The proof-of-concept study, described in Nature Communications, demonstrates that it is possible to create stable digital circuits that take advantage of an electron’s properties at quantum scales, researchers said.

A challenge in creating molecular circuits is that as the circuit size decreases, the circuits become unreliable as the electrons needed to create current behave like waves, not particles, at the quantum scale.

For example, on a circuit with two wires that are one nanometre apart, the electron can ‘tunnel’ between the two wires and effectively be in both places simultaneously, making it difficult to control the direction of the current.

Molecular circuits can mitigate these problems, but single-molecule junctions are short-lived or low-yielding due to challenges associated with fabricating electrons at that scale.

Ryan Chiechi, associate professor of chemistry at North Carolina State University and co-corresponding author of the research paper said the team’s goal was to create a molecular circuit using tunnelling as an advantage, rather than fighting against it.