In July of 1999 a molecular switch was made for the first time, but the switch could
only be thrown once. By November 1999 they had a switch that could be turned
on and off many times but it had to be kept close to absolute zero and stopped working
after a few hours. In today's issue of Science James Heath report on a molecular switch
that works at room temperature and shown no signs of wearing out. Even better, you can
throw the switch with electricity or with light. Even better, not only do the electrical
characteristics change when the switch is thrown so does its color, from green to maroon.
John K Clark jonkc@att.net
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Mon Oct 02 2000 - 17:36:12 MDT