The Use of Biomolecules to Organize Metal Nanoclusters with Applications Toward Room Temperature Nanoelectronics

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9705343 Wybourne This interdisciplinary research project will investigate the chemical synthesis and electrical transport properties of ligand stabilized nanocluster arrays. Both one- and two-dimensional systems will be investigated, with the latter structures used primarily to develop the necessary chemistry for the principal goal of fabricating highly ordered and electrically addressable one-dimensional arrays of metal nanoclusters. The effects of polydispersity, structural disorder and trapped charge will be investigated, and the long term goal of incorporating molecular level contacts, such as gate electrodes, directly to molecular scaffold structures using branched, helical polypeptides will be addresed. %%% This project involves a well integrated education and research effort aimed at using biomolecules to organize metal nanoclusters and includes as a goal the creation of a room temperature Coulomb blockade device as a possible replacement for CMOS memory devices. It involves a group of 2 graduate students, and a synthetic chemist and a physicist as PIs, both of whom appear to work well together and have excellent established outstanding track records in their various fields of expertise. The project will provide students with interdisciplinary research experience and training in synthetic chemistry and in condensed matter physics areas such as transport measurements. The students will also be working within the Institute of Molecular Biology at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute to characterize the cluster arrays using AFM and STM. ***