But Rowan wasn't thinking about coloring eggs. The challenge is to use chemistry to build microscopic structures that mimic electronic circuits. The miniscule computers could be used to crunch numbers, forecast weather or screen blood for cholesterol. And all for a fraction of the cost of what IBM or Texas Instruments spends to build huge high-tech plants to make silicon chips. And that's what Rowan and others hope to do.
Some people say it's a pipe dream.
Others say it could well happen, and shake up the multibillion-dollar computer chip industry. But no one expects it to happen overnight. To accomplish their goal, scientists will have to take hundreds of small experimental steps over perhaps a decade. Joining Rowan in this effort is a team of six other scientists at Case and Ohio State University. But they are not alone.