Professor Chris Dwyer of Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering mixed customised snippets of DNA and other molecules to literally billions of identical, tiny, waffle-looking structures.

These nanostructures efficiently self-assemble and when different light-sensitive molecules are added to the mixture, the waffles exhibit programmable properties that can be easily used.

"It's like taking pieces of a puzzle, throwing them in a box and as you shake the box, the pieces gradually find their neighbors to form the puzzle," said Professor Dwyer.

"What we did was to take billions of these puzzle pieces, throwing them together, to form billions of copies of the same puzzle."

Using light to excite these molecules, known as chromophores, simple logic gates can be created -- these circuits are the fundamental building blocks of all computer processors.

"When light is shined on the chromophores, they absorb it, exciting the electrons," Professor Dwyer said.

"The energy released passes to a different type of chromophore nearby that absorbs the energy and then emits light of a different wavelength."

"That difference means this output light can be easily differentiated from the input light, using a detector."

Professor Dwyer is convinced that the new technique will lead to a new generation of computer chips derived from DNA.

"This is the first demonstration of such an active and rapid processing and sensing capacity at the molecular level," he said.

"Conventional technology has reached its physical limits."

"The ability to cheaply produce virtually unlimited supplies of these tiny circuits seems to me to be the next logical step."