APPLICATIONS: Researchers Make Molecules Behave.(Brief Article)

A team of researchers at the University of Massachusetts (Amherst, MA; Tel: 413/545-2989) has found a way to make molecules that are too tiny to be seen, even under the strongest microscopes, behave in a predictable and orderly way. The finding is expected to have major implications in the development of faster computers and ultra-sensitive sensors, such as electronic "noses" that locate land mines and diseases. The team, led by Professor of Chemistry Vincent Rotello, reported the details in the April 13 issue of the journal Nature.

The team specializes in coaxing the molecules to stick together - a process scientists call "self-assembly." While self-assembly occurs often in nature (such as when ice forms and when salt crystals congeal in the salt shaker), it's harder to make synthetic molecules self-assemble in a controlled way, Rotello says. Scientists have long been able to form small molecules of a specific shape. They have also been able to form large structures. The significance of this work is the ability to form large, synthetic structures while controlling their shape, atom-by-atom.

Scale is a large part of the problem. Scientists are essentially trying to build Tinkertoy-like structures without being able to see the sticks and hubs. "Making things tiny is important to industry," says Rotello. "If transistors fashioned from molecules could be effectively arranged, a billion to a trillion times as many transistors could fit on the same size chip as fit now."

The ...