The NINT Molecular Clipping Overdrive Prototype

[magiclawnchair]

ive been under a rock. yesterday i find out there is a new MADMAX movie coming out and today i read all this!!!

i might have to sit in a dark room for a bit and calm down!!!

[Ryan]

I finally got to read all the papers. Holy moly, this is big. Looks like the Heisenberg is next on my list.

Adam, are there any possible three-terminal devices that can be realized with molecular junctions? Something like an NPN junction or FET?

Well, we had three-terminal devices in mind for a long time. Certainly we want to look into this in the future. For now, I've been busy making two-terminal devices and finding was to ensure we understand how they can perform over time, etc.

In other areas, we've published a couple papers showing a photocurrent that occurs in the devices, and we are also looking into light emission from molecular junctions. So in any case, there may be a lot of other things we can do, but the clipping circuit is definitely a great starting point!!!!

Very interesting. I'll be following your publications closely! I work in integrated optics so I have enough background to more or less follow what's going on, but I'm not at all acquainted with using organic compounds for novel devices. It's awesome that this has an impact on music tech though!

In the mean time, how do you intend to package the junctions if they go to production? I'm looking forward to using these in my own designs someday.

Thanks for stopping by, John and Adam!

ive been under a rock. yesterday i find out there is a new MADMAX movie coming out and today i read all this!!! :whoa:

i might have to sit in a dark room for a bit and calm down!!! :whoa:

Nice to see you, Darren! The things you miss when you take a little break from ILF hey! *smile*

[ajbergren]

In the mean time, how do you intend to package the junctions if they go to production? I'm looking forward to using these in my own designs someday.

Well, for now we are using a SIM-card format, as we've worked out how to make a lot of them this way. We are going to be gluing in chips tomorrow for the first 100; I'll try and snap some photos and upload them here!

In the future, we want to get to a through-hole and surface mount package, and we are testing these formats as well.... it will just take some time for this, but we'll get there!

[ajbergren]

Here are some early devices!

[Ryan]

Dr. Adam sent me some more cool molecular junction pics!

We're still working on some circuit changes to make sure the junctions are protected from what yous guys are gonna send in for signals, like 18V bass guitars and line level recording sends, higher voltage stuff than the junctions maybe wanna see. We've also decided to forgo the LED indication for the gain stages in favour of using just one junction. It was a compromise of using the 4 pole rotary switch to either switch lights on or off with the gain stages or switch 1 junction in and out of 3 gain stages.. it'll make the price of the Heisenberg go down a nice amount and also help us to be able to get more Heisenbergs made with a limited number of junctions.

We're thinking July release now, sorry for the hold-up!

[Clean Channel]

Christmas in July!

[Ryan]

Haha yeah, it'll be a Half-Christmas celebration! I'm gonna miss those gain stage LEDs though, I thought they looked really sweet and I liked how it made the H look like a smaller version of the university's prototypes. *looks down and kicks a rock*

[Transmission]

Really looking forward to this!

An earlier post said the three molecular junctions would be specially tailored to each gain stage? If there will now only be one molecular junction, will the range of tones/gain range available change from the earlier design? Will it still cover boost, overdrive, distortion and fuzz?

[ajbergren]

Really looking forward to this!

An earlier post said the three molecular junctions would be specially tailored to each gain stage? If there will now only be one molecular junction, will the range of tones/gain range available change from the earlier design? Will it still cover boost, overdrive, distortion and fuzz?

It should still cover all these bases, there will just be a few tweaks required to ensure the three stages are in good balance with a single device. Overall, I am finding that a given junction is in great balance between the boost and NPN fuzz stage without doing anything in particular, but that the op-amp OD stage can require a bit more tweaking (but this can be done with just a couple component changes).

For example, devices that give a lot of gain for the op-amp stage (set for a particular overall gain range and frequency response) can give less gain for the transistor-based stages, and vice-versa. Nothing that can't be handled, but it is a case where the strength of molecular junction technology (tweak-ability) requires some stick handling to get consistent results. Hope that makes sense!

[Ryan]

For the prototypes there was just one kind of junction and it sounded great with all the gain stages... One Junction To Rule Them All!

[Sparrow]

Hey Ryan. i've been looking into Quantum Physics n junk lately.
is this Box going to be able to Contact .. The Future!?

[Clean Channel]

The junction will be housed in a stomp box, so I guess I'll never be certain if it's working or not until I open the box.

Btw: I CAN'T WAIT TO GET ONE OF THESE! THE FUTURE IS NOW AND NOW THEN NOW!

[Sparrow]

The junction will be housed in a stomp box, so I guess I'll never be certain if it's working or not until I open the box.

[goroth]

The junction will be housed in a stomp box, so I guess I'll never be certain if it's working or not until I open the box.

[Ryan]

Hey guys!

Ok, since my last post in here we've gone back to having 3 junctions for the Heisenberg. 1 no-dot junction for the op amp stage and 1 red-dot junction for each transistor stage. Then you get the best of both worlds, the ultimate molecular junction pedal, no holds barred! The Heisenberg will be similar to the big NINT prototypes in that they'll be great for experimenting. Every amplifier is socketed, the junctions are socketed, and I'm experimenting with including bias trimpots for each stage too so a person could conduct many experiments should they so choose.

The protection for the junctions is sorted out now too. The junctions have a limit for how much current they can handle and how high voltage they can run at, so the transistor stages just need a bit of series resistance to keep the junctions safe and the op amp stage has 4 extra silicon diodes in the feedback path to cut the signal off at about 1.2V in each direction. This is a way higher threshold than the guitar signal ever hits so these diodes are completely inaudible, they don't do anything unless a massive signal comes in, something bigger than I've been able to inject.

Last week I received the Heisenberg drill sample from the box boys in OK and it looks great, all good on that front! I also have all the junctions on hand now for the whole first run of the H, got 'em all here on a shelf looking cool and ready for action. We just have to come up with a cool finish now...

Here's a pic of the breadboard and the pcb layout:

Hey Ryan. i've been looking into Quantum Physics n junk lately.
is this Box going to be able to Contact .. The Future!? :!!!:

Really cool stuff hey! You've been going over the double slit experiment, observation problem, entanglement, uncertainty... it's amazing hey!

The junction will be housed in a stomp box, so I guess I'll never be certain if it's working or not until I open the box.

Btw: I CAN'T WAIT TO GET ONE OF THESE! THE FUTURE IS NOW AND NOW THEN NOW!

I left Schrodinger out of the equation by putting a clear back plate on the Heisenberg.. now we know they'll work and sound great at the same time! *big smile*

One more cool pic that Dr. Adam sent me recently, here's his description:

Attached you'll find an image (in false rainbow colour!) of the height across a 5 x 5 micrometer (1 micrometer = 1/millionth of a meter) area AFTER I dug a 1 x 1 micrometer sized hole into the molecule. What you see in the centre is the the depth of the hole, which in this case calculates to 6 +/- 1 nm: that is about six molecular lengths! Thus, the bottom of the trench is "0" nm on the colour scale, while the surrounding area is yellow/green, corresponding to ~6 nm.

Junction Molecule Thickness.pdf

(198.35 KiB) Downloaded 203 times

Thanks again for keeping the thread active guys and I should have a final pcb prototype ordered soon, I'll do another update then!