ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the five most promising next-generation technologies that aim to drive Moore's law in the foreseeable future, combined with traditional enhancements in photolithography and multi-patterning. They are graphene-based electronic circuits, optoelectronic waveguides and photonic crystals, molecular electronics, spintronics and quantum computing. Optoelectronic theory is based on the quantum mechanical effect of light waves on semiconductor materials. These methods include utilizing nuclear spins in solute organic molecules and on semiconductor surfaces, atomic energy level individual ions and neutral atoms, photons in optical cavities, electron spins and orbital states. Optoelectronic devices transport, detect or manipulate light waves and form an integral part of electrical-to-optical or optical-to-electrical transfer of information signals. These write and read functions are the crux of memory devices, used traditionally in logic circuits. One of the leading candidate materials for use in building molecular electronic devices is the carbon nanotube.
