Just as seven digits are enough to provide unique phone numbers for hundreds of thousands of people, 10 wires are enough to direct signals in a specific way to each of more than 1,000 ultrathin wires. A signal sent down just the second, third and seventh wires would automatically be directed to the 15th ultrathin wire.) Each switch would then be served by two identifiable ultrathin wires. (For instance, the 15th ultrathin wire might have connections with the second, third and seventh of the larger wires. Those random connections would mean that each ultrathin wire would have a unique pattern of connections that could be used to identify it. Tiny particles of gold would be randomly sprinkled so that at about half the intersections, a connection would be made between the ultrathin wire and the larger wire at half the locations, the two would remain apart. The 10 larger wires would be laid at right angles to the 1,000 ultrathin wires at the edges of the grid with a nonconducting layer in between.
#3 SETS OF WIRES TO ONE SWITCH HOW TO#
The patent describes how to route signals to 1,000 ultrathin wires using 10 larger wires. Kuekes, another scientist at Hewlett-Packard Laboratories, said, ''There is no possible way to talk to all of these wires at once.'' More complex devices would require many more. Even a one-megabyte chip would require a thousand ultrathin wires leading off in each direction. Moving from theory to reality will require practical ways to get information into and out of the chip. Each switch would store one bit of information: a zero when open, a one when closed. At each intersection, a molecular switch - a rotaxane molecule or one of its successors - would be wedged between the two wires. To make a memory chip, the Hewlett-Packard researchers envision two ultrathin sets of wires crisscrossing at right angles like the streets and avenues of Manhattan. Research published last month by scientists at Rice University and Penn State indicate that the switches can be scaled down to a single molecule. scientists developed a different molecule, with two interlocking rings groups of those molecules could be switched back and forth between the on and off positions.īecause of the thickness of the wires used in its experiments to date, the switches Hewlett-Packard has used so far actually consist of millions of molecules each. The rotaxane switches developed by Hewlett-Packard could not be reset, but the following year, the U.C.L.A. The switch mechanism consisted of rotaxane molecules between two crossed wires. A ring-shape structure slides up or down along the rest of the molecule, changing its electrical resistance. announced that they had created a custom-designed, carbon-based molecule called rotaxane that could act as a switch. Two years ago, scientists at Hewlett-Packard and U.C.L.A. Stanley Williams, director of quantum science research at Hewlett-Packard Laboratories in Palo Alto, Calif. ''The current patent really is the blueprint for the research we're going to be doing for the next four years,'' said Dr.
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