Conducting polymers in molecular electronics

Electronic technology has developed enormously over the past decades. The trend is to make better, faster and smaller electronic devices for use in our daily living. Most of the electronic devices are fabricated directly on semiconductor silicon. Today s advanced silicon chip can store sixteen million bits of information within an area less than 1 cm. However, there is a practical limit to the capacity of the storage of information within the chip. It is being conjectured that as chip density increases, crosstalk between them tends to degrade their performance. If the components are pushed further, they may short-circuit. This inherent technical difficulty has led to the evolution of the field of molecular electronics. 

Molecular electronics (ME) is so named because it uses molecules to function as switches and wires . ME is a term that refers both to the use of molecular materials in electronics and to electronics at molecular level. It is as yet not very clear how molecular electronic devices will operate, but it is conjectured that active molecules are needed, either in isolation or becoming active by association with other molecules. It is thought that electronics is likely to imitate some of the basic functions of macroscopic devices such as memories, sensors and logic circuits. 

The development of molecular electronics is dependent upon the synthesis and tailoring of active molecules and is a great challenge to researchers. Conducting polymers can be prepared both by chemical and electrochemical techniques. The nature of a monomer 

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V. Saxena, B. D. Malhotra, Prospects of conducting polymers in molecular electronics, Current Applied Physics 2003, 3, 293. 

Roth, S., "Conductive polymers in molecular electronics Conductivity and photoconductivity", p. 129 in Salaneck, W.R. Clark, D.T. Samuelsen, E.J. (Eds.), Science and Applications of Conducting Polymers, Adam Hilger, New York, USA (1991). 

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