The development of ever more powerful electronics
depends on continued progress in miniaturizing their
components. As materials shrink to the nanometer
scales, various quantum phenomena become important,
which may lead to novel applications from electronics
to chemical sensors. Also, as silicon-based
microelectronics is heading towards the increasingly
difficult road of nanometer scale, building a device
with individual molecules (molecular electronics) has
been actively pursued as a promising alternative.
While recent progress is impressive, several problems
remain to be solved in order to build a practical
device. The first one is: how to connect individual
molecules to the outside world? Once a molecule is
successfully connected to the external world, the
second problem is: how to control the electron
transfer through the molecule? In this talk, I will
answer these questions and share with you the exciting
new phenomena of nanomaterials and some related novel
applications.