Des chercheurs ont construit des circuits auto-assemblés à base de protéines capables d’exécuter des fonctions logiques simples afin de démontrer qu’il est possible de créer des circuits numériques stables qui tirent parti des propriétés d’un électron à l’échelle quantique.
Dans une étude de validation de concept, les scientifiques ont créé des circuits auto-assemblés à base de protéines capables d’exécuter des fonctions logiques simples. Ce travail démontre qu’il est possible de créer des circuits numériques stables qui tirent parti des propriétés d’un électron à l’échelle quantique.
L’une des pierres d’achoppement dans la création de circuits moléculaires est que les circuits deviennent peu fiables lorsque leur taille diminue. En effet, les électrons nécessaires à la création du courant se comportent comme des ondes, et non comme des particules, à l’échelle quantique. Par exemple, sur un circuit comportant deux fils séparés d’un nanomètre (un milliardième de mètre), l’électron peut “passer” entre les deux fils et se trouver simultanément aux deux endroits, ce qui rend difficile le contrôle de la direction du courant. Les circuits moléculaires peuvent atténuer ces problèmes, mais les jonctions monomoléculaires sont de courte durée ou de faible rendement en raison des difficultés associées à la fabrication d’électrodes à cette échelle.
“Notre objectif était d’essayer de créer un circuit moléculaire qui utilise l’effet tunnel à notre avantage, plutôt que de lutter contre lui”, explique Ryan Chiechi, professeur associé de chimie à North Carolina State University and co-corresponding author of a paper describing the work.
Chiechi and co-corresponding author Xinkai Qiu of the University of Cambridge built the circuits by first placing two different types of fullerene cages on patterned gold substrates. They then submerged the structure into a solution of photosystem one (PSI), a commonly used chlorophyll protein complex.
The different fullerenes induced PSI proteins to self-assemble on the surface in specific orientations, creating diodes and resistors once top-contacts of the gallium-indium liquid metal eutectic, EGaIn, are printed on top. This process both addresses the drawbacks of single-molecule junctions and preserves molecular-electronic function.
“Where we wanted resistors we patterned one type of fullerene on the electrodes upon which PSI self-assembles, and where we wanted diodes we patterned another type,” Chiechi says. “Oriented PSI rectifies current – meaning it only allows electrons to flow in one direction. By controlling the net orientation in ensembles of PSI, we can dictate how charge flows through them.”
The researchers coupled the self-assembled protein ensembles with human-made electrodes and made simple logic circuits that used electron tunneling behavior to modulate the current.
“These proteins scatter the electron wave function, mediating tunneling in ways that are still not completely understood,” Chiechi says. “The result is that despite being 10 nanometers thick, this circuit functions at the quantum level, operating in a tunneling regime. And because we are using a group of molecules, rather than single molecules, the structure is stable. We can actually print electrodes on top of these circuits and build devices.”
The researchers created simple diode-based AND/OR logic gates from these circuits and incorporated them into pulse modulators, which can encode information by switching one input signal on or off depending on the voltage of another input. The PSI-based logic circuits were able to switch a 3.3 kHz input signal – which, while not comparable in speed to modern logic circuits, is still one of the fastest molecular logic circuits yet reported.
“This is a proof-of-concept rudimentary logic circuit that relies on both diodes and resistors,” Chiechi says. “We’ve shown here that you can build robust, integrated circuits that work at high frequencies with proteins.
“In terms of immediate utility, these protein-based circuits could lead to the development of electronic devices that enhance, supplant and/or extend the functionality of classical semiconductors.”
The research was published in Nature Communications. Co-authors Chiechi and Qiu were formerly at University of Groningen, the Netherlands.
Reference: “Printable logic circuits comprising self-assembled protein complexes” by Xinkai Qiu and Ryan C. Chiechi, 28 April 2022, Nature Communications.
DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-30038-8
