Tiny molecules that can think, remember, and learn may be the missing link between electronics and the brain.
For more than half a century, researchers have looked for ways to move past silicon by building electronics from molecules. The idea sounded simple and beautiful, but real devices turned out to be messy. Inside a working component, molecules do not act like neat, isolated pieces from a textbook.
Instead, they form crowded, interactive networks where electrons move, ions shift position, interfaces change over time, and even tiny differences in structure can trigger strongly nonlinear behavior. The potential was exciting, but reliably predicting and controlling what a molecular device would do remained out of reach.
In parallel, neuromorphic computing has chased a related goal. Neuromorphic computing – hardware inspired by the brain – aims to find a material that can store information, perform computation, and adapt within the same physical substance, all in real time. But the leading approaches today, often built on oxide materials and filamentary switching, still act like carefully engineered systems that mimic learning rather than materials that naturally contain learning in their physical behavior.
A New IISc Study Brings Two Challenges Together
A new study from the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) suggests these two long-standing problems may be meeting at the same solution.
Working across chemistry, physics, and electrical engineering, a group led by Sreetosh Goswami, Assistant Professor at the Centre for Nano Science and Engineering (CeNSE) created tiny molecular devices that can be adjusted to take on very different roles.
Depending on how the device is stimulated, it can function as a memory unit, a logic gate, a selector, an analog processor, or an electronic synapse. “It is rare to see adaptability at this level in electronic materials,” says Sreetosh Goswami. “Here, chemical design meets computation, not as an analogy, but as a working principle.”
