Ionic logic gates lay groundwork for biological circuitry

Electrons, the basis of information transfer in modern circuits, are not alone in their ability to form logic gates. Klas Tybrandt, researcher at Linkoping University, Sweden, recently demonstrated that ions in solution, like the ions found in solution that are used for signaling in our bodies, can do this too. Simple ionic transistors are not novel, but this is the first reported demonstration of logic gates, the basic building blocks of circuits. His results were chemically interesting; that complementary logic gates (those make with both positive- and negative-based ions) were more power-efficient than simple gates. Tybrandt's work, featured in Nature Communications this week, was also the first to create devices that function at physiological salt concentrations, and therefore offer direct applicability to ionic circuits in biological systems.