The first transistors to be fashioned from a single "buckyball" - a molecule of carbon-60 - have been reported by a team of Berkeley Lab and UC Berkeley researchers.

Taking advantage of a phenomenon that is largely viewed as a problem by the electronics industry, the research team created a separation between two gold electrodes that was about one nanometer (one billionth of a meter) across. This tiny gap could accommodate the insertion of a single buckyball in order to create a molecular-sized electronic device.

"Nature long ago solved the problem of making electronic devices on a molecular scale, and we're now beginning to learn how to do things the way nature does," says Paul McEuen, a physicist who holds joint appointments with Berkeley Lab's Materials Sciences Division and UC Berkeley's Physics Department.

McEuen was one of the coauthors of a paper in the Sept. 7 issue of the journal Nature that described this research. The other authors were Hongkun Park, Jiwoong Park, Andrew Lim, Erik Anderson, and Paul Alivisatos.

The ability to use individual molecules as functional electronic devices is a much coveted prize in the computer industry because of the potential for dramatically shrinking the silicon-based microelectronic systems of today.

Contact: Bruce Davies (510) 486-6461