
An unusual class of molecules could revolutionise the electronics industry - rustoo
https://www.rsc.org/news-events/journals-highlights/2019/apr/molecular-electronics/
======
MLWithPhil
Just a heads up to those who haven't published in peer review journals: hyping
the potential commercial applications of your research, no matter how mundane
the discovery, is required.

Worse yet, the published work concerns simulations. Simulations are cool, and
have great value, but they don't constitute discovery. Confirmation of a
theoretical prediction by experimentalists constitutes a discovery.

Even if the effect is confirmed, the road to putting it into commercial use is
long and most likely a dead end. I know first hand that "nanoscience" isn't so
much science as it is an art. Tiny imperfections result in large changes to
desired effects. This is due to the increased contribution of interfaces and
surfaces relative to the bulk. The very same property that leads to novel
physics is the one that defeats the potential for practical applications.

I long for the day when people can do good science just for the sake of good
science, and not have to spin every single paper as being the start of some
new revolution that never seems to come.

~~~
umhau
> I long for the day when people can do good science just for the sake of good
> science, and not have to spin every single paper as being the start of some
> new revolution that never seems to come.

I absolutely agree - but I think that's only going to happen when people's
livlihoods are not dependent on the immediate value of their research.

~~~
semi-extrinsic
J. J. Thompson (who discovered the electron) said this about 100 years ago:

 _If you pay a man a salary for doing research, he and you will want to have
something to point to at the end of the year to show that the money has not
been wasted._

 _In promising work of the highest class, however, results do no come in this
regular fashion, in fact years may pass without any tangible result being
obtained, and the position of the paid worker would be very embarrassing and
he would naturally take to work on a lower, or at any rate a different plane
where he could be sure of getting year by year tangible results which would
justify his salary._

 _The position is this: You want one kind of research, but, if you pay a man
to do it, it will drive him to research of a different kind. The only thing to
do is to pay him for doing something else and give him enough leisure to do
research for the love of it._

------
eridius
I thought this was a remarkably bizarre sentence:

> _" Unlike the wires we know from everyday life, where electric current runs
> directly through the wire, the current runs in a circular fashion as it
> proceeds through these molecules. This behaviour is due to a quantum
> mechanical effect known as electrohelicity, which in this case causes
> electrons in molecules to move in a helical fashion, spiralling around the
> molecule."_

It's a circular definition. They basically said "the current runs in a
circular fashion due to a quantum mechanical effect known as current-runs-in-
circular-fashionicity, which in this case causes current to run in a circular
fashion"

~~~
ximeng
It can be useful to introduce a canonical term for a phenomenon, even if there
is limited immediate explanatory value.

~~~
setr
In this case it was just poorly done; they explained that it was caused by X,
then redundantly restated that X caused it but in a format that looks like X
was being defined

------
Symmetry
_" Today, research in molecular electronics, in terms of using single
molecules, is still at a conceptual stage", says Dr Solomon. "But organic
electronics, using films of molecules, is an extremely important technology in
many consumer products."_

People have gotten carbon nanotubes at least into prototypes rather than just
conceptual work. Getting the tubes to stick to the pads reliably enough to
form whole computers isn't possibly now but if you're willing to pay enough
for a nanotube based 7400 series chip I'm not aware of anything stopping you.

~~~
deepnotderp
Well there's also performance characteristics which iirc are not quite CMOS
grade yet. Also idk how much of an problem contact resistance would be.

------
smrk007
I'm not entirely sure if I understand – What electrical component could these
be used to replace? Could they be used to build single molecule wires, or
something like single molecule NAND gates, etc?

~~~
semi-extrinsic
> these molecules might be candidates for spin-selective transport and/or
> sensitivity to magnetic fields (...) We hope that at some point these
> quantum effects can be used in electronic devices which are nothing like the
> ones we use today.

Basically they're hoping to achieve some form of novel device, not replace
existing components.

This isn't without precedent - we have examples like Hall effect and giant
magnetoresistive sensors. Both of these went from "weird quantum phenomenon"
to "everyone has a device in their home with a component built on this tech".

~~~
fredgrott
bombs with electronic triggers is one example of application of a bomb
detection sensor...another one is a medial device sensor for safety on cancer
medical treatment devices

------
mnemotronic
Does electricity at this level -- electrons moving in a corkscrew motion down
a wire -- generate an electromagnetic field? If so, how does this field differ
from electron motion in a normal conductor?

~~~
systemspeed
My understanding was that the helical shape described the orbital of the
electron at the molecular level and not its track down an actual wire. I think
the hope is to exploit this helical shape using external electromagnetic
sources of energy to manipulate (move/rotate) individual molecules due to
this.

Disclaimer: I am a layman in this realm. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

