Design of a Self-Assembled Memory Circuit

The fields of molecular electronics and self-assembly have the potential to revolutionize the way electronic devices are constructed. There are many high-level designs of self-assembling systems that, given the proper components, could be used to construct such devices, and there are many low-level components that have been experimentally validated and could be used in self-assembling systems. In this paper, I attempt to bridge the divide between what could theoretically be constructed and what components are technologically available, or nearly available. I propose a design for a self-assembled memory circuit and possible candidates for components that could be used to implement that design. The design consists of a self-assembling DNA scaffold to position and align the electronic components, gold nanoparticles arranged into nanowires, bipyridyl-dinitro oligophenylene-ethynylene dithiol molecules acting as memory elements, and semiconducting carbon nanotube transistors implementing demultiplexing logic.