Introduction

Abstract

AbstractDue to the developments in nanotechnology and biotechnology in last two decades, handling nanometer scale entities has become a critical issue. Since the human sensing, precision and size are not sufficient to interact with such nanoscale entities directly, nanorobotics has emerged as a new robotics field to extend our manipulation capabilities to nanometer scale [1, 2]. In such nanorobotic systems, nanoscale grippers or force fields are used to apply external physical forces to manipulate nanoscale entities precisely. By manipulation, it is meant that the entities are pushed or pulled, cut, picked and placed, trapped, indented, bent, twisted, bonded, assembled, etc. by controlling contact or non-contact external forces. The structure of a generic nanorobotic manipulation system using a nanoscale probe tip as a nanomanipulator is displayed in Figure 0.1. The nanomanipulator exerts controlled forces to nanoscale entities such as nanoparticles, carbon nanotubes, nanowires, nanocrytals, and biological entities (DNA, protein, cell, bio-motors, etc.) precisely by applying mechanical, electrical, optical,magnetic, or dielectrophoretic contact or non-contact forces. Far-field (optical microscope or scanning electron microscope (SEM)) and near-field (scanning probe microscopes (SPMs)) imaging devices and integrated nanoscale force sensors are used for teleoperated, semi-autonomous or autonomous control of a high precision, generally piezoelectric, XYZ nanopositioner. For controlling the environmental disturbances and factors, acoustic and vibration isolation systems and humidity and temperature controllers are typically integrated into the system.KeywordsAtomic Force MicroscopeScanning Tunneling MicroscopePlasmon WaveguideAtomic Force Microscope CantileverConductive Atomic Force MicroscopeThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.