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Molecular computers

Molecular computers a team of researchers at the Queen's University in Belfast, Ireland, is training human-made molecules to act as tiny computers. These specially-synthesised molecules that can act as nanoscale light sensors or molecular transistors (analogous to 2-way switches) can revolutionise medicine, industry and information technology.

Sri Lanka-born organic chemist Amilra de Silva and his team have created molecules that give a unique response to each permutation of two variables to which they are exposed. These variables are elements (sodium or potassium) and light (blue, green, red or ultraviolet). Since the synthesised molecules are fluorescent, their response to which combination of element and light (colour) they are exposed to, shows up as a flash of light of a particular colour.

This property of these molecules is analogous to semi-conductor switches that make up a computer. These switches are called logic gates in computer parlance and are of seven types such as and, or and not. The significance of the work by the Queen University scientists lies in the fact that they could design logic gates that have chemicals and light as inputs and light as output. The output from one molecule can serve as the input for the next and so on

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