`Tiny crystals may lead to more powerful digital devices`

A tiny electrical circuit created by researchers may lead to new digital devices with increasing amounts of computational power packed into a smaller space.

Melbourne: Scientists have developed a tiny electrical circuit that may lead to new digital devices with increasing amounts of computational power packed into a smaller space.

The electrical circuit created by researchers at Curtin University in Australia is made from crystals of copper that are grown and electrically wired at the nanoscale.

The researchers used a single nanoparticle to create an ensemble of different diodes, a basic electronic component of most modern electronic devices, which functions by directing the flow of electric currents.

In the research published in the journal ACS Nano, the team used a single copper nanoparticle to compress in a single physical entity that would normally require many individual diode elements.

The researchers showed that each nanoparticle had an inbuilt range of electrical signatures and had led to something akin to 'one particle, many diodes', thereby opening up the concept of single-particle circuitry.

The breakthrough would enable new concepts and methods in the design of miniaturized circuitry, said Yan Vogel from Curtin University.

"Instead of wiring-up a large number of different sorts of diodes, as is done now, we have shown that the same outcome is obtained by many wires landing accurately over a single physical entity, which in our case is a copper nanocrystal," Vogel said.