Molecular Transistor

Physicists have made what they believe to be the first true single molecule transistor.
Image courtesy of Hyunwook Song and Takhee Lee (2011)

One of the longstanding challenges in cutting edge microelectronics has been the creation of a transistor built around a single molecule. The picture above shows a scanning electron microscope image of one of the first working molecular transistors, along with an inset depicting an illustration of the molecule linked across the transistor’s gold electrodes.