Molecular Electronics

How fast and powerful can computers become? Will it be possible someday to create artificial brains that have intellectual capabilities comparable to those of human beings? The answers to these questions depend to a very great extent on a single factor: how small and dense we can make computer circuits. Scientists have achieved revolutionary advances that may very well radically change the future of computing. DNA, RNA and protein computing is a new computational paradigm that harnesses biological molecules to solve computational problems. There are significant advantages in using biological molecules, since nature has solved similar problems to those encountered in harnessing organic molecules to carry out data manipulation. Biomolecules can be considered electronic elements, built to process information. They could be used as photonic devices in holography, as spatial light modulators, in neural network optical computing, as nonlinear optical devices, and as optical memories. Molecular computers may use a billion times less energy than electronic computers, while storing data in a trillionth of the space. Moreover, computing with biomolecules is highly parallel. In a remarkable series of demonstrations, chemists, physicists and engineers have shown that individual molecules can conduct and switch electric current and store information. Various research projects have been implemented by national and international groups and they have produced a large amount of data using multidisciplinary research strategies, ranging from physics and engineering to chemistry and biology.