The capability to fabricate structures in the submicron range is essential for the successful development of nanotechnology. Although optimized lithographic processes have reduced the feature sizes on microelectronics chips already below 100 nm, the final resolution of these top-down techniques will be limited. Bottom-up approaches, such as the self-assembly of carbon-nanotubes, quantum dots or biopolymers, are capable of producing structures well below 10 nm. However, the techniques that are currently available to manipulate or arrange such nanostructures in a controlled manner require large, sophisticated and expensive apparatuses (about 10.000 times bigger than the structures to be manipulated). The fact that these machines can usually manipulate only a small number of nanostructures at a time severely limits their applicability for efficient molecular nanoconstruction.
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