Israeli scientists harnessed the construction capabilities of DNA and the electronic properties of carbon nanotubes to create the self-assembling nano-transistor. [...] First they used proteins to allow carbon nanotubes to bind to specific sites on strands of DNA. They then turned the remainder of the DNA molecule into a conducting wire. [...]Out of 45 nanoscale devices created in three batches, almost a third emerged as self-assembled transistors. They work at room temperature and the only restriction for future devices is that the components must be compatible with the biological reactions and the metal-plating process.
The team have already connected two of the devices together, using the biological technique. "The same process could allow us to create elaborate self-assembling DNA sculptures and circuitry," says Braun.
self-assembling transistors
Nano-transistor self-assembles using biology
Tags: robots, the future
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8 Responses:
Shades of Michael Crichton's "Prey".
That sounds killer!!! Can they wire that stuff into our bodies?? That would be the next step to android-like people... Probalby not very workable at this stage, but it points that direction to me!
This article gave me Evil Photoshop Urges, so I thought I'd share:
your B-form double helix is backwards.
I guess it must be a PNP transistor, then.
touche.
Of course. Art. That is exactly what funds this kind of research, and certainly the only application that it might possibly be used for...
No hints about the mass-production potential in the article. If the process is cheap enough, and the product teeny enough... okay, and if quality testing is cheap and quick enough... a 50-70% failure rate could be perfectly acceptable! Wouldn't take much for it to be more ecologically sound than any production micro-transistor technology I'm aware of!