Clocked Molecular Quantum-Dot Cellular Automata

Quantum-dot cellular automata (QCA) is an approach to computing that eliminates the need for current switches by representing binary information as the configuration of charge among quantum dots. For molecular QCA, redox sites of molecules serve as the quantum dots. The Coulomb interaction between neighboring molecules provides device–device coupling. By introducing clocked control of the QCA cell, power gain, reduced power dissipation, and computational pipelining can be achieved. We present an ab initio analysis of a simple molecular system, which acts as a clocked molecular QCA cell. The intrinsic bistability of the molecular charge configuration results in dipole or quadrupole fields that couple strongly to the state of neighboring molecules. We show how clocked control of the molecular QCA can be accomplished with a local electric field.