Nanocomputing

Nanotechnology deals with the techniques of operating and building at the nanometer scale. One nanometer is equal to one millionth of a millimeter. And nanocomputing pertains to computations and computing machinery at the nano-scale level.

In 1959, Richard Feynman first conceived the idea of arranging things molecule-by-molecule and subsequently atom-by-atom, some day.

Phenylene group comprising C6H4 structures have been shown to produce larger conductive molecules, which integrate molecular wires and molecular switches. Recent research by MITRE Corporation, which is one of the United States Department of Defense's organization, came up with a molecular a electronic AND gate, incorporating polyphenylene-based Molecular Rectifying Diodes embedded in tour wires.

Once we have a basic AND gate, OR and NOT gates could be created using similar structures. Digital electronics and computing design principles can help build more complex logic structures utilizing these three basic computing building blocks. Among the things that could be created using these are the CPU, memory (ROM and RAM) and any other device like hard disk, etc. A computer built using nano elements as the building blocks is called a nanocomputer.