Theoretical Study Of Molecular Device And Universal Device Model

While traditional silicon electronics should continue industrial dominance for the next decade, novel nanoelectronic solutions will be needed to surmount the physical and economic barriers of current semiconductor technologies and continue along the exponential projections of Moore's Law. Although most new nanoelectronic solutions are still in their infancy, they present the potential for unprecedented levels of device density, low power computing, and tight integration with other biological and chemical functions. In the field of molecular electronics, researchers have gained quite a few exciting achievements. Especially in the past few years, molecular electronics steps into a brand new era. But as a pioneering subject, it needs the advancement both in experimental techniques and fundamental theories. The study of molecular electronics is mainly in the nanosacle electronics, it uses bottom-up approach that uses atoms to build nanometer-sized molecules which is believed to be a very potential technology as alternative of current silicon semiconductor technology and could further self-assemble into a desired computer. A branch of the study of molecular electronics consists of the design, combination, testing and application of the molecular electronic devices. The key points of this paper are theoretical study of the conductive molecules and molecular electronic devices. At first, this paper gives a brief introduction to some conductive molecules (including organic and inorganic molecules and biomolecules), compares their electrical properties and demonstrates the mechanisms of conductance of these molecules. In the Chapter two, several molecular electronic devices and their operating principle are presented, of which three-terminal molecular device is of great importance to the molecular circuits requiring some form of power gain and signal restoration. Based on the two-terminal UDM (universal device model) proposed by Matthew and Garrett, this paper puts forward a generic three-terminal UDM such that circuit simulation and design become possible at the nanoscale level . In addition, this paper also presents the theoretical design flow using UDM, and has given circuit examples that show the UDM in action. The computation of I-V (current versus voltage) behavior is a hard nut to crack in the theoretical study of the molecular electronic devices. In the Chapter three, this paper introduces a computational method based on Büttiker's multi-terminal response formula which will provide strong theoretical guidance for the study of molecular electronic devices. The further challenges for design and combination of molecular electronic devices are fully estimated in this paper, and solutions are proposed. At the end of this paper, we make a brief summarization of this paper, arrange further works, and summarize some development experiences at last.