Transistor Fail

Now here’s a catchy title for a talk that I was just invited to; “Active electronic impurity doping of silicon nanovolumes: Failure and alternatives.”

This reminds me of another tech dream that I had the other night.

This time I imagined a new way to make an organic transistor.

Rather than having a material that is generally an electronic semiconductor I dreamt of creating a conductive path only at the interface of two phases of molecules.

Applying a voltage (or any other driving force) would cause the normally mixed molecules to separate into two phases with that resulting clever conductive interface allowing for current flow.

Imagine two largish molecules or two phases of smaller molecules of say 2-4 nm in radius disentangling and separating due to an applied voltage. Phase separation.

Then at the interface, a previously non existent conductive path. Hey presto, a transistor.

Which makes me realise that nature has all the tools it needs in order to build a binary computer.

Of course the applied voltage could be anything. Thermal energy, pressure, or just about any energy input.

And the conductive path could be diffusive, where molecules flow rather than electrons.

Ah, if I was a mad academic I’d build one of these transistors and claim a Nobel prize. I could even power it with an organic solar cell using organic conductors to get an all organic computer.

Fortunately I have more sense than that.