Scanning tunneling microscopy and spectroscopy investigations of QCA molecules

Quantum-dot cellular automata (QCA), a computation paradigm based on the Coulomb interactions between neighboring cells. The key idea is to represent binary information, not by the state of a current switch (transistor), but rather by the configuration of charge in a bistable cell. In its molecular realization, the QCA cell can be a single molecule. QCA is ideally suited for molecular implementation since it exploits the moleculeʹs ability to contain charge, and does not rely on any current flow between the molecules. We have examined using an UHV-STM some of the QCA molecules like silicon phthalocyanines and Fe–Ru complexes on Au (1 1 1) and Si (1 1 1) surfaces, which are suitable candidates for the molecular QCA approach.