Israeli physicists are developing a technique that allows DNA molecules to build electronic circuits, and are using extremely thin silver wires as bridges between the molecules.
If the technique is perfected, information from millions of books could be stored on a microchip no larger than a speck of dust. According to one of the researchers, the team is taking advantage of 4.5 billion years of evolution and letting DNA do most of the work.
Building a microchip with DNA is similar to building an ordinary chip, except that single strands of DNA molecules are attached to gold electrodes used as connectors. By looking through a microscope, the team noted that the DNA strands grew together, forming a bridge between connectors. In order for the DNA bridge to conduct electricity, a thin layer of silver was added over the DNA structure, forming a microscopic metal wire.
The researchers produced a silver wire one-thousandth the width of a human hair — less than half the size of wires used in similar applications. They hope to build a wire that is 250 times smaller than that.
If the research progresses as hoped, the payoff could be huge. The DNA-assembled microchip could create faster, less expensive and more sophisticated computers. The researchers estimate that microchips made with DNA could store 100,000 times as much information as a current device.
However, much work needs to be done. The research team claims to have shown that DNA molecules can be used as organizers for the simplest electronic component, a conducting wire. The next step is a self-assembled transistor 100 times smaller than those used in microchips now.
— The preceding is an excerpt from “Silver News,” a publication of Washington, D.C.-based The Silver Institute.
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