Craig Lent

Research Interests

What are the ultimate limits for how small we can make computing devices? What fundamental constraints does physics impose, either in size, speed, or heat dissipation? For the past several years, Professor Lent's group has been investigating these questions in the context of a new transistor-less paradigm known as Quantum-dot Cellular Automata (QCA), which enables binary computing that can be scaled down to the single-molecule size scale. QCA has been explored in metal-dot, GaAs, Si, nanomagnetic, and molecular systems. The group, which works with a number of chemists on design of molecules for QCA, is also interested in fundamental issues in quantum theory and the connection to information theory.

Professor Lent holds a concurrent appointment in the Department of Physics.