The ultimate goal of electrical circuits is miniaturization. Also known as single molecule electronics, this is a branch of nanotechnology that uses single molecules or collections of single molecules as electronic building blocks.

Molecular electronics and the organic electronics described above have a lot in common, and these two fields overlap each other in some aspects. To clarify, organic electronics refers to bulk applications, while molecular-scale electronics refers to nano-scale, single-molecule applications.

Conventional electronics are traditionally made from bulk materials. However, the trend of miniaturization in electronics has forced the feature sizes of the electronic components to shrink accordingly. In single-molecule electronics, the bulk material is replaced by single molecules. The smaller size of the electronic components decreases power consumption while increasing the sensitivity (and sometimes performance) of the device. Another advantage of some molecular systems is their tendency to self-assemble into functional blocks. Self-assembly is a phenomenon in which the components of a system come together spontaneously, due to an interaction or environmental factors, to form a larger functional unit.

Several molecular electronic solutions have been developed, including molecular wires, single-molecule transistors and rectifiers. However, molecular electronics is still in the early research phase, and none of these devices has left the laboratory.