Nanosys Founder Publishes Landmark Paper on the Bottom-up Assembly of Nanoscale Logic Device Elements

Cambridge, MA - (November 8, 2001). Nanosys Incorporated announced today the publication of pioneering research by Harvard Professor and Nanosys founder Charles Lieber that demonstrates the ability to reproducibly construct nanoscale logic gates and carry out basic computations using assembled nanoscale building blocks. This is a leap forward in a disruptive technology that has the potential to supplant current microelectronic manufacturing strategies, and enable vastly more powerful computational and electronics platforms.

Titled "Logic Gates and Computation from Assembled Nanowire Building Blocks," the article appears in the November 9, 2001 issue of the prestigious scientific journal Science. Dr. Lieber, the Mark Hyman Professor of Chemistry at Harvard University, is the senior author of the paper in conjunction with Harvard graduate students, Yu Huang, Xiangfeng Duan, Yi Cui, Lincoln Lauhon, and Kevin Kim. This landmark work demonstrates for the first time a robust, so-called bottom-up approach to manufacturing nanoscale logic elements and the use of these logic elements for basic computation—both firsts in the nanoelectronics/molecular electronics field.

In the paper, the Lieber group details construction of nanoscale logic gates encoding the fundamental AND, OR, and NOR logical functions, which can be combined to perform any of the required logical functions needed in a (nano)computer. The authors demonstrate this important concept with the half-adder described in the report, and moreover, show these devices operate with substantial gain, which is needed for highly integrated structures. The work shows for the first time that reproducible and highly controlled device behavior can be achieved by exploiting the chemically and electronically well-controlled semiconductor nanowires developed by the Lieber laboratory. The use of these nanowire building blocks also enables highly scalable nanowire assemblies, and thus this work provides the most important foundation yet for a simple bottom-up manufacturing approach for large-scale, integrated nanoelectronic computational devices.

“Using a simple crossbar architecture of a p-doped nanowire with an n-type nanowire, our group has been able to assemble rationally a wide range of nanowire junction arrays configured as basic nanoscale logic gate structures with high gain for the first time, “ said Dr. Lieber. A completely new and break-through idea in this work is that different nanowire building blocks are used to define all key nanoscale metrics without the need for top-down lithographic techniques. “With this new approach we can readily extrapolate far beyond expectations of the semiconductor roadmap, and do so using inexpensive bottom-up manufacturing approach,” said Lieber.

“It is exciting to recognize that the basic logic functions of AND, OR, and NOR can be realized in a completely predictable manner with our approach, and that we can use these building blocks to create functional nanowire computation devices,“ said Xiangfeng Duan, a Lieber graduate student and co-author of the study who will be joining Nanosys to initiate an advanced technology effort.

“Professor Lieber and his students have demonstrated a revolutionary advance in nanoscale computation and reproducible bottom-up assembly of basic logic device elements. The breadth and depth of the intellectual property platform was recognized as an essential element to building the premier nanotechnology company," said Larry Bock, CEO of Nanosys. "We expect the same nanowire technology platform to be essential in transforming the fields of molecular sensing and opto-electronics."

About Professor Charles Lieber

Dr. Lieber is the Scientific Founder of Nanosys, Inc., a Member of the Board of Directors, and Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Board. Dr. Lieber is the Mark Hyman Professor of Chemistry at Harvard University. Dr. Lieber is the world's leading authority on the synthesis of one-dimensional, nano-structured materials (nanowires), and on the design of nanowire enabled devices. Dr. Lieber's laboratory is able to rationally design, control and scale the first robust building blocks of nanoscale device architecture. His laboratory has created prototypes for nano-scale devices with biologic, electronic and optoelectronic applications. Dr. Lieber has won numerous awards including the Feynman Prize for Nanotechnology, the Creativity Award of the National Science Foundation, the Leo Hendrick Baekeland Award from the American Chemical Society, the Materials Research Society Outstanding Young Investigator Award, and the Presidential Young Investigators Award. Dr. Lieber graduated with a Ph.D. in Chemistry from Stanford University and carried out his Post Doctoral work at the California Institute of Technology. Prior to taking his position at Harvard, Dr. Lieber was a Professor of Chemistry at Columbia University.

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