In-Cell Nanoelectronics:Opening the Door to Intracellular Electrophysiology

Establishing a reliable electrophysiological recording platform is crucial for cardiology and neuroscience research.Noninvasive and label-free planar multitransistors and multielectrode arrays are conducive to perform the large-scale cellular electrical activity recordings,but the signal attenua-tion limits these extracellular devices to record subthreshold activities.In recent decade,in-cell nanoelectronics have been rapidly developed to open the door to intracellular electrophysi-ology.With the unique three-dimensional nanotopography and advanced penetration strategies,high-throughput and high-fidelity action potential like signal recordings is expected to be realized.This review summarizes in-cell nanoelectronics from versatile nano-biointerfaces,penetration strategies,active/pas-sive nanodevices,systematically analyses the applications in electrogenic cells and especially evaluates the influence of nanodevices on the high-quality intracellular electrophysiological signals.Further,the opportunities,challenges and broad prospects of in-cell nanoelectronics are prospected,expecting to promote the development of in-cell electrophysiological platforms to meet the demand of theoretical investigation and clinical application.

New Method for Diagnostics of Ion Implantation Induced Charge Carrier Traps in Micro- and Nanoelectronic Devices

An important problem of defect charging in electron-hole plasma in a semiconductor electronic device is investigated using the analogy of dust charging in dusty plasmas. This investigation yielded physical picture of the problem along with the mathematical model. Charging and discharging mechanism of charge carrier traps in a semiconductor elec-tronic device is also given. Potential applications of the study in semiconductor device technology are discussed. It would be interesting to find out how dust acoustic waves in electron-hole plasma in micro and nanoelectronic devices can be useful in finding out charge carrier trap properties of impurities or defects which serve as dust particles in elec-tron-hole (e-h) plasma. A new method based on an established technique “deep level transient spectroscopy” (DLTS) is described here suggesting the determination of properties of charge carrier traps in present and future semiconductor devices by measuring the frequency of dust acoustic waves (DAW). Relationship between frequency of DAW and properties of traps is described mathematically proposing the basis of a technique, called here, dust mode frequency deep level transient spectroscopy (DMF-DLTS).

Artificial enzymes,cancer chemotherapy,conjugation and nanoelectronics,and prebiotic chemistry

This is a summary,with extensive references,of several areas of chemistry in which the Breslow lab has been involved,leading to work still underway in several of them.The principal conclusions are described,but it will be necessary to consult the references for details of the work involved.

Hybrid Nanoelectronics： Future of Computer Technology

Nanotechnology may well prove to be the 21st century＇s new wave of scientific knowledge that transforms people＇s lives. Nanotechnology research activities are booming around the globe. This article reviews the recent progresses made on nanoelectronic research in US and China, and introduces several novel hybrid solutions specifically useful for future computer technology. These exciting new directions will lead to many future inventions, and have a huge impact to research communities and industries.

Coverage Optimization for Defect-Tolerance Logic Mapping on Nanoelectronic Crossbar Architectures

Emerging nano-devices with the corresponding nano-architectures are expected to supplement or even replace conventional lithography-based CMOS integrated circuits, while, they are also facing the serious challenge of high defect rates. In this paper, a new weighted coverage is defined as one of the most important evaluation criteria of various defecttolerance logic mapping algorithms for nanoelectronic crossbar architectures functional design. This new criterion is proved by experiments that it can calculate the number of crossbar modules required by the given logic function more accurately than the previous one presented by Yellambalase et al. Based on the new criterion, a new effective mapping algorithm based on genetic algorithm （GA） is proposed. Compared with the state-of-the-art greedy mapping algorithm, the proposed algorithm shows pretty good effectiveness and robustness in experiments on testing problems of various scales and defect rates, and superior performances are observed on problems of large scales and high defect rates.

Local Energy Dissipation/Transition in Field Effect Molecular Nanoelectronic Systems:a Quantum Mechanical Methodology

Electronic and vibrational intra-molecular thermoelectric-like ?gures of merit(ZT_γ~M) are introduced for single molecule nanoelectronic system, using quantum theory of atoms in molecule. These ?gures of merit are used to describe intra-molecular or local energy dissipation/transition(as in Joule-like, Peltier-like, and Thomson-like effects) in?eld effect molecular devices. The ZT_γ~M?gures of merit are computed for two proposed molecular devices. Analysis of the results shows that ZT_γ~Mdepends almost non-linearly on the electric ?eld(EF) strength. Also, the intra-molecular Joule-like heating plays a dominant role in the local energy dissipation, and intra-molecular Thomson-like heating is generally larger than the intra-molecular Peltier-like heating. Introduction of ZT_γ~Mcan be applied to extend the analysis of thermoelectric heating down to molecular and intra-molecular levels, and thus can be used to predict characteristics and performance of any candidate multi-terminal or multi-pole molecular systems prior to their application in real nanoelectronic circuits.

Low-power emerging memristive designs towards secure hardware systems for applications in internet of things

Emerging memristive devices offer enormous advantages for applications such as non-volatile memories and inmemory computing(IMC),but there is a rising interest in using memristive technologies for security applications in the era of internet of things(IoT).In this review article,for achieving secure hardware systems in IoT,lowpower design techniques based on emerging memristive technology for hardware security primitives/systems are presented.By reviewing the state-of-the-art in three highlighted memristive application areas,i.e.memristive non-volatile memory,memristive reconfigurable logic computing and memristive artificial intelligent computing,their application-level impacts on the novel implementations of secret key generation,crypto functions and machine learning attacks are explored,respectively.For the low-power security applications in IoT,it is essential to understand how to best realize cryptographic circuitry using memristive circuitries,and to assess the implications of memristive crypto implementations on security and to develop novel computing paradigms that will enhance their security.This review article aims to help researchers to explore security solutions,to analyze new possible threats and to develop corresponding protections for the secure hardware systems based on low-cost memristive circuit designs.

Performance Evaluation of Efficient XOR Structures in Quantum-Dot Cellular Automata (QCA)

Quantum-dot cellular automaton (QCA) is an emerging, promising, future generation nanoelectronic computational architecture that encodes binary information as electronic charge configuration of a cell. It is a digital logic architecture that uses single electrons in arrays of quantum dots to perform binary operations. Fundamental unit in building of QCA circuits is a QCA cell. A QCA cell is an elementary building block which can be used to build basic gates and logic devices in QCA architectures. This paper evaluates the performance of various implementations of QCA based XOR gates and proposes various novel layouts with better performance parameters. We presented the various QCA circuit design methodology for XOR gate. These layouts show less number of crossovers and lesser cell count as compared to the conventional layouts already present in the literature. These design topologies have special functions in communication based circuit applications. They are particularly useful in phase detectors in digital circuits, arithmetic operations and error detection & correction circuits. The comparison of various circuit designs is also given. The proposed designs can be effectively used to realize more complex circuits. The simulations in the present work have been carried out using QCADesigner tool.

Progress on 2D topological insulators and potential applications in electronic devices

Two-dimensional topological insulators(2DTIs)have attracted increasing attention during the past few years.New 2DTIs with increasing larger spin-orbit coupling(SOC)gaps have been predicted by theoretical calculations and some of them have been synthesized experimentally.In this review,the 2DTIs,ranging from single element graphene-like materials to bi-elemental transition metal chalcogenides(TMDs)and to multi-elemental materials,with different thicknesses,structures,and phases,have been summarized and discussed.The topological properties(especially the quantum spin Hall effect and Dirac fermion feature)and potential applications have been summarized.This review also points out the challenge and opportunities for future 2DTI study,especially on the device applications based on the topological properties.

Superconductor Hybrids-Electronic Paths to Quantum Computing

We review several recent theoretical and experimental results in the study of superconductor hybrids. This includes the recent experimental advances in the study of superconducting beamsplitters as well as more advanced superconductor hybrid systems including ferromagnets or Majorana fermions. In the same manner, theoretical studies have revealed that such superconductor hybrid systems pave the way towards electronic generation and detection of entanglement as well as possible use cases in quantum computing. We will review the aspects in detail and illustrate the possible next steps to be taken.

Full Counting Statistics of Superconductor-Quantum Dot-Superconductor Contacts in the Presence of Interactions

In this paper, we discuss the full counting statistics of superconducting quantum dot contacts. We discuss the effects both of phonon and onsite electronic interaction focusing on the experimentally most relevant case of strong onsite electronic interactions. We find that in general, the Josephson effect and multiple Andreev reflections in these systems are strongly suppressed due to the onsite interaction. However, in case resonant phonons are found, the effect of the onsite interaction can be overcome.

Unveiling field-coupled nanocomputing:Leaning molecules to shape readable bits

Molecular field-coupled nanocomputing(molFCN)encodes information in the molecule charge distribution and elaborates it through electrostatic coupling.Despite the advantageous sub-nanometric size and low-power dissipation,only a few attempts have been made to validate the technology experimentally.One of the obstacles is the difficulty in measuring molecule charges to validate information encoding or integrate molFCN with complementary-metal-oxide-semiconductor(CMOS).In this work,we propose a paradigm preserving the advantages of molFCN,which exploits the position of waiving molecules to augment the information encoding.We validate the paradigm,named bend-boosted molFCN,with density functional theory using 6-(ferrocenyl)hexanethiol cations.We demonstrate that the encoded information can be electrically read by constituting a molecular junction.The paradigm is compatible with the charge-based molFCN,thus acting as a readout system.The obtained results favor the experimental assessment of the molFCN principle through scanning probe microscopy techniques and the design of molFCN-CMOS heterogeneous circuits.

Stable alkali halide vapor assisted chemical vapor deposition of 2D HfSe2 templates and controllable oxidation of its heterostructures

Two-dimensional hafnium-based semiconductors and their heterostructures with native oxides have been shown unique physical properties and potential electronic and optoelectronic applications.However,the scalable synthesis methods for ultrathin layered hafnium-based semiconductor laterally epitaxy growth and its heterostructure are still restricted,also for the understanding of its formation mechanism.Herein,we report the stable sublimation of alkali halide vapor assisted synthesis strategy for high-quality 2D HfSe_(2) nanosheets via chemical vapor deposition.Single-crystalline ultrathin 2D HfSe_(2) nanosheets were systematically grown by tuning the growth parameters,reaching the lateral size of 6‒40μm and the thickness down to 4.5 nm.The scalable amorphous HfO_(2)and HfSe_(2)heterostructures were achieved by the controllable oxidation,which benefited from the approximate zero Gibbs free energy of unstable 2D HfSe_(2) templates.The crystal structure,elemental,and time dependent Raman characterization were carried out to understand surface precipitated Se atoms and the formation of amorphous Hf−O bonds,confirming the slow surface oxidation and lattice incorporation of oxygen atoms.The relatively smooth surface roughness and electrical potential change of HfO_(2)−HfSe_(2) heterostructures indicate the excellent interface quality,which helps obtain the high performance memristor with high on/off ratio of 105 and long retention period over 9000 s.Our work introduces a new vapor catalysts strategy for the synthesis of lateral 2D HfSe_(2) nanosheets,also providing the scalable oxidation of the Hf-based heterostructures for 2D electronic devices.

Nanoscience and the nano-bioelectronics frontier

This review describes work presented in the 2014 inaugural Tsinghua University Press-Springer Nano Research Award lecture, as well as current and future opportunities for nanoscience research at the interface with brain science. First, we briefly summarize some of the considerations and the research journey that has led to our focus on bottom-up nanoscale science and technology. Second, we recapitulate the motivation for and our seminal contributions to nanowire- based nanoscience and technology, including the rational design and synthesis of increasingly complex nanowire structures, and the corresponding broad range of ＂applications＂ enabled by the capability to control structure, com- position and size from the atomic level upwards. Third, we describe in more detail nanowire-based electronic devices as revolutionary tools for brain science, including （i） motivation for nanoelectronics in brain science, （ii） demonstration of nanowire nanoelectronic arrays for high-spatial/high-temporal resolution extracellular recording, （iii） the development of fundamentally-new intracellular nanoelectronic devices that approach the sizes of single ion channels, （iv） the introduction and demonstration of a new paradigm for innervating cell networks with addressable nanoelectronic arrays in three-dimensions. Last, we conclude with a brief discussion of the exciting and potentially transformative advances expected to come from work at the nanoelectronics-brain interface.

Carbon nanotube transistors with graphene oxide films as gate dielectrics

Carbon nanomaterials,including the one-dimensional(1-D) carbon nanotube(CNT) and two-dimensional(2-D) graphene,are heralded as ideal candidates for next generation nanoelectronics.An essential component for the development of advanced nanoelectronics devices is processing-compatible oxide.Here,in analogy to the widespread use of silicon dioxide(SiO2) in silicon microelectronic industry,we report the proof-of-principle use of graphite oxide(GO) as a gate dielectrics for CNT field-effect transistor(FET) via a fast and simple solution-based processing in the ambient condition.The exceptional transistor characteristics,including low operation voltage(2 V),high carrier mobility(950 cm2/V-1 s-1),and the negligible gate hysteresis,suggest a potential route to the future all-carbon nanoelectronics.

Speeding up carbon nanotube integrated circuits through three-dimensional architecture

Semiconducting carbon nanotube (CNT) field effect transistor (FET) is attractive for constructing three-dimensional (3D) integrated circuits (ICs) because of its low-temperature processes and low power dissipation. However, CNT based 3D ICs reported usually suffered from lower performance than that of monolayer CNT ICs. In this work, we develop a 3D IC technology through integrating multi-layer high performance CNT film FETs into one chip, and show that it promotes the operation speed of CNT based 3D ICs considerably. We also explore the advantage on ICs of 3D architecture, which brings 38% improvement on speed over two-dimensional (2D) one. Specially, we demonstrate the fabrication of 3D five-stage ring-oscillator circuits with an oscillation frequency of up to 680 MHz and stage delay of 0.15 ns, which represents the highest speed of 3D CNT-based ICs.

Bottom-up synthesis of ultrathin straight platinum nanowires： Electric field impact

We present a study of the electric field effect on electrochemically grown ultrathin, straight platinum nanowires with minimum diameter of 15 nm and length in the micrometer range, synthesized on a silicon oxide substrate between metal electrodes in H2PtC16 solution. The influence of the concentration of the platinum- containing acid and the frequency of the applied voltage on the diameter of the nanowires is discussed with a corresponding theoretical analysis. We demonstrate for the first time that the electric field profile, provided by the specific geometry of the metal electrodes, dramatically influences the growth and morphology of the nanowires. Finally, we provide guidelines for the controlled fabrication and contacting of straight, ultrathin metal wires, eliminating branching and dendritic growth, which is one of the main shortcomings of the current bottom-up nanotechnology. The proposed concept of self-assembly of thin nanowires, influenced by the electric field, potentially represents a new route for guided nanocontacting via smart design of the electrode geometry. The possible applications reach from nanoelectronics to gas sensors and biosensors.

DNA origami mediated electrically connected metal–semiconductor junctions

DNA-based nanofabrication of inorganic nanostructures has potential application in electronics,catalysis,and plasmonics.Previous DNA metallization has generated conductive DNA-assembled nanostructures;however,the use of semiconductors and the development of well-connected nanoscale metal-semiconductor junctions on DNA nanostructures are still at an early stage.Herein,we report the first fabrication of multiple electrically connected metal-semiconductor junctions on individual DNA origami by location-specific binding of gold and tellurium nanorods.Nanorod attachment to DNA origami was via DNA hybridization for Au and by electrostatic interaction for Te.Electroless gold plating was used to create nanoscale metal-semiconductor interfaces by filling the gaps between Au and Te nanorods.Two-point electrical characterization indicated that the Au-Te-Au junctions were electrically connected,with current-voltage properties consistent with a Schottky junction.DNA-based nanofabrication of metal-semiconductor junctions opens up potential opportunities in nanoelectronics,demonstrating the power of this bottom-up approach.

The evolution of graphene-based electronic devices

Successful isolation of single-layer graphene,the two-dimensional allotrope of carbon from graphite,has fuelled a lot of interest in exploring the feasibility of using it for fabrication of various electronic devices,particularly because of its exceptional electronic properties.Graphene is poised to save Moore’s law by acting as a successor of silicon-based electronics.This article reviews the success story of this allotrope with a focus on the structure,properties and preparation of graphene as well as its various device applications.

Nanobiotechnology： 1D nanomaterial building blocks for cellular interfaces and hybrid tissues

Solid-state nanomaterials exhibit complementary interactions with biological systems because of their biologically-relevant size scales and rationally tunable electrical, chemical and mechanical properties. In this review, we focus specifically on one-dimensional （1D） nanomaterials such as silicon or gold nanowires or carbon nanotubes. We discuss the nature of the nanomaterial-cell interface, and how that interface may be engineered to enhance or modulate cellular function. We then describe how those unique interfaces may be exploited in three-dimensional （3D） tissue culture to recapitulate the extracellular matrix and promote or complement morphogenesis. Finall~ we describe how 1D nanomaterials may be elucidated as nanoelectronic devices that monitor the chemical or electrical environment of cells or tissue with exquisite spatial and temporal resolution. We discuss prospects for entirely new classes of engineered, hybrid tissues with rationally-designed biological function and two-way, closed-loop electronic communication.