Gary - it is the reason that I shared the article.  I think
there are many implications for many disabilities both for
devices that can be devised and also implants of many sorts.
We hopefully can be advocates for applications that level the
playing field with new, relevant technologies.  I am glad you
brought your situation up - the more we share this sort of
question, the more we think creatively about it.
Cathy
PS I am legally blind - so I have my thoughts as well.
on 10/19/2001 12:10 AM, Gary Peterson at [log in to unmask] wrote:

> So I wonderwhat all this means for those of us with CP?-Gary
> 
> 
> On Thu, 18 Oct 2001, Catherine Alfieri wrote:
> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> Precursor to Tiniest Chip Is Developed
>> 
>> October 18, 2001
>> 
>> By KENNETH CHANG
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> In an advance that presages the tiniest of computer
>> circuitry possible, researchers at Lucent Technologies have
>> built a transistor in which the layer that switches
>> currents on and off is only one molecule thick.
>> 
>> Dr. J. Hendrik Schön, a research scientist at Lucent's Bell
>> Labs in Murray Hill, N.J., said the experiment proved that
>> transistors that worked exactly like those in current
>> computer chips could be built at the molecular scale.
>> 
>> "It shows what can be the ultimate limit for transistors,"
>> Dr. Schön said. The technology is years away from
>> commercial applications.
>> 
>> An article describing findings by Dr. Schön, Dr. Hong Meng
>> and Dr. Zhenan Bao, all of Bell Labs, appears in today's
>> issue of the journal Nature.
>> 
>> "It is really, really nice work that will influence the
>> field a lot," said Dr. James M. Tour, a professor of
>> chemistry at Rice University. "They hit on something really
>> big."
>> 
>> Transistors are essentially voltage-controlled switches. In
>> the off state, no current can flow through, which
>> represents a "0" in the binary language of computers. When
>> an electric field is applied from the side, from a third
>> terminal known as a gate electrode, the electronic
>> properties shift and current starts to flow: the on or "1"
>> position of the switch.
>> 
>> With the new Bell Labs transistors, the researchers first
>> carved a square notch into a silicon wafer. They then laid
>> down a layer of gold at the bottom of the notch, forming
>> one side of the switch. The wafer was then dipped in a
>> solution of carbon- based, stick-shaped molecules that
>> behave as semiconductors, with the ends of the molecules
>> designed to bond to gold.
>> 
>> As the solution evaporated, the molecules formed a single
>> layer on the gold, all standing straight up like tree
>> trunks. A second gold layer was then added on top for the
>> other side of the switch.
>> 
>> The vertical wall of the silicon notch acted as the gate
>> electrode, applying the electric current that turned
>> current on and off between the gold electrodes.
>> 
>> The layer of carbon-based molecules is less than one
>> ten-millionth of an inch thick, far thinner than the
>> equivalent structure in current silicon transistors. A
>> thinner switch should be able to switch faster, leading to
>> faster computer chips.
>> 
>> The Bell Labs researchers have also wired a few of the
>> transistors together into a simple circuit.
>> 
>> Current techniques of carving transistor circuits into
>> silicon are expected to run into fundamental physical
>> limits in 10 to 15 years that will stop further
>> miniaturization.
>> 
>> Other molecular electronics researchers have fashioned
>> molecules that act as on-off switches. Transistors, with
>> the additional gate electrode, also amplify the incoming
>> signal, which counters the effects of electrical resistance
>> as the signals pass through the circuit.
>> 
>> This year, two groups of researchers, one at I.B.M. the
>> other at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands,
>> announced that they had built transistors and simple
>> circuits out of ultra-thin carbon cylinders known as
>> nanotubes. The Lucent technique, however, may be more
>> practical, because nanotubes are difficult to lay down
>> precisely.
>> 
>> "It's a step above what has ever been done in nanotubes,"
>> Dr. Tour said. "Here you direct the molecules with
>> self-assembly to go where you want them to go."
>> 
>> Dr. Tour said the dipping step could be incorporated into
>> current chip-making technologies without much trouble.
>> "They built all this upon a silicon platform," he said.
>> "This is the marriage you want."
>> 
>> While the switching layer in the prototype transistor is
>> only one molecule thick, it still contains several hundred
>> thousand molecules. Lucent officials hinted that further
>> advances were imminent as they work to shrink the number of
>> molecules in the switching layer.
>> 
>> "This is just the beginning of a revolution," said Dr.
>> Federico Capasso, vice president for physical research at
>> Bell Labs.
>> 
>> Shrinking transistors is not a solution by itself, said Dr.
>> R. Stanley Williams, director of quantum science at
>> Hewlett-Packard Laboratories in Palo Alto, Calif. If
>> trillions of molecule-size transistors could be made,
>> trying to wire them together could be an intractable mess.
>> 
>> http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/18/science/18TRAN.html?ex=1004394494&ei=1&en=
>> bbd26de1e37f291e
>> 
>> 
>> 
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>> 

 
Catherine Alfieri
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