One of the most brilliant scientific researchers of recent years
stands accused of committing an elaborate scientific fraud, fooling
many eminent experts.

One of the most brilliant scientific researchers of recent years
stands accused of committing an elaborate scientific fraud, fooling
many eminent experts.

Nano-scientist's dark secret
By Nick Green

One of the most brilliant scientific researchers of recent years
stands accused of committing an elaborate scientific fraud, fooling
many eminent experts.

In 2001, a team led by Hendrik Schoen appeared to have invented the
smallest organic transistor ever made.
Only a single molecule in length, it was hailed as a huge
breakthrough, capable of transforming the world of computers.

But, as BBC Two's Horizon programme shows this week, the
"breakthrough" led to his disgrace and began a cascade of events that
would result in one of the most intriguing science stories of recent
years.

When he published his work, Schoen's tiny transistor was regarded as a
discovery that could have blasted open the world of nanotechnology -
where cheap, powerful computers could transform the world in which we
live.

Stuff of legend

Transistors are the minute "switches" that control the flow of
information in a computer chip. The more you can fit on to a chip, the
more powerful your computer.

Schoen's transistor was far smaller than anything possible on a
silicon chip, so it seemed to herald a new age when computer power
could grow to undreamed of levels.

It was the latest in a long line of great discoveries made by Schoen.
He was only in his early 30s and yet had already made advances in the
world of superconductors and lasers.

His name had become so prominent in the scientific journals that to
many of his rivals he had taken on legendary status.

Professor Jeremy Baumberg, from Southampton University, UK, told
Horizon: "This was the new level of science that you had to match
yourself up against, and everybody knew they couldn't, they couldn't
meet that.

"It was like competing against a god really." But his transistor work
had surpassed everything he had done before.

Growing doubts

What he had apparently achieved was a way of connecting up dye-like
molecules in a transistor circuit. When the circuit was switched on,
they found it had the same characteristics as a silicon transistor.

It was a double breakthrough. Schoen's transistor was not just very
small, it was made from simple organic molecules.

He had beaten a huge raft of teams around the world to the discovery
of the first non-silicon-based transistor. One rival, Paul McEuen, at
Cornell University, was amazed.


"It was really stunning to those of us who'd been toiling away long
and hard to try to make these kind of things work. It just blew us out
of the water."
Once it was published, there were those who speculated it could be the
first step in a journey that could lead to the death of the silicon
chip industry.

It promised incredibly cheap computer chips that did not need to be
manufactured in hugely expensive fabrication plants, but instead could
be custom-built, at a fraction of the cost, in simple laboratories.

But during the excitement surrounding this discovery, there were those
who had doubts about the veracity of the science.

Many of Hendrik Schoen's fantastic claims just could not be repeated
in the lab by rival scientists, and many were getting frustrated. It
had got to the point where there were serious whisperings about his
credibility.

No chance

One of those who had heard the rumours was Professor Lydia Sohn, now
working at the University of California at Berkeley, but even she was
surprised when after getting into work one morning she found a message
on her answerphone. "It said: 'Lydia, this is your homework, look at
these two papers by Hendrik'."

The two papers described Schoen's transistor work, but crucially they
told of two completely different experiments.

After reading and rereading the journals, Sohn found that the two
papers contained graphs that were exactly the same. Her colleague Paul
McEuen believed that the chance of these two separate experiments
giving the same results was "basically zero".

Further analysis of his papers going back through previous years
provided more evidence of suspicious data.

Schoen's employers, Bell Laboratories, instantly launched an
independent investigation into his conduct and the verdict was
damning.

After its findings were released, Bell fired Schoen. Nature, the
journal which had published much of his work, retracted the suspect
papers triggering a huge amount of soul searching in the scientific
community.

The hunt for a single molecular transistor to rival silicon goes on.

Horizon's The Dark Secret of Hendrik Schoen is broadcast on BBC Two at
2100 GMT on Thursday 5 February.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/sci/tech/3459769.stm

Published: 2004/02/04 16:54:11 GMT

© BBC MMIV

One of the most brilliant scientific researchers of recent years
stands accused of committing an elaborate scientific fraud, fooling
many eminent experts.

One of the most brilliant scientific researchers of recent years
stands accused of committing an elaborate scientific fraud, fooling
many eminent experts.