Carbon Nanotube-Based Nonvolatile Random Access Memory for Molecular Computing

Authors

Thomas Rueckes, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA
Kyoungha Kim, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA
Ernesto Joselevich, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA
Greg Y. Tseng, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA
Chin Li Cheung, University of Nebraska at LincolnFollow
Charles M. Lieber, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA

Date of this Version

July 2000

Comments

Published in Science Vol. 289, no. 5476 (July 7, 2000), pp. 94–97; doi 10.1126/science.289.5476.94 Copyright © 2000 by the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Used by permission. http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/289/5476/94

Abstract

A concept for molecular electronics exploiting carbon nanotubes as both molecular device elements and molecular wires for reading and writing information was developed. Each device element is based on a suspended, crossed nanotube geometry that leads to bistable, electrostatically switchable ON/OFF states. The device elements are naturally addressable in large arrays by the carbon nanotube molecular wires making up the devices. These reversible, bistable device elements could be used to construct nonvolatile random access memory and logic function tables at an integration level approaching 1012 elements per square centimeter and an element operation frequency in excess of 100 gigahertz. The viability of this concept is demonstrated by detailed calculations and by the experimental realization of a reversible, bistable nanotube-based bit.