Functional Study of Magnetotactic Bacteria in VLSI Design

摘要

Magnetotactic bacteria are a type of prokaryotic cells that can orient and migrate along the geomagnetic field lines in order to fulfill their physiological functions and anaerobic/microaerophilic requirements. This work investigates the magnetotaxis (sensitivity to magnetic field) of Magnetospirillum magneticum and studies the ability to apply this function to very large scale integration (VLSI) design and fabrication. It is known that magnetotaxis is closely associated with a chain of magnetic particles inside the bacterial cell that acts as a dipole. MATLAB analysis and modeling as well as control of a mesh of current carrying conductors using Mentor Graphics indicate that there is a possibility of these bacteria being manipulated (through their shapes, sizes and speeds) to use them as "skilled workers" to transport one or more atoms/molecules in order to form a nano-scale, bottom-up construction methodology beneficial to the field of integrated circuit fabrication. A further study would be to analyze the various pathways responsible for the formation of magnetic crystals through nucleation inside the bacterial cell in order to increase the sensitivity for cells much smaller than currently available. The engineering education component that stems from this research is to potentially realize the use of biomolecules to fabricate integrated circuits below the current state of art feature size possible.