Generally chemical synthesis involves putting a variety of compounds together in an environment where they will react and self-assemble into the desired product. Direct mechanical manipulation could be significantly more effective with synthesizing various substances. This mechanosynthesis is however not that simple, despite the deceptive appearance of those ball-and-stick representations in high school chemistry class.
This is demonstrated in a recent (pre-publication) study by [Megan Cowie] et al. using inverted-mode STM. One could say that in a sense what we’re trying to accomplish is somewhat akin to what biological cells do in their ribosome, where compounds are synthesized into a protein string using a template. The difference here being that rather than merely trying to create a 2D structure that then folds into a desired shape, we would like to build 3D structures directly.
Using a scanning tunneling microscope (STM) you can measure a surface on a nanoscale, with the inversed principle used in inverted-mode STM (IM-STM) to physically move individual molecules. In the paper the construction of carbon-based 3D structures using IM-STM is demonstrated.
In the paper it is demonstrated how C2 units can be moved using the tip of an IM-STM setup for subsequent polyyne structure construction through C-C bond formation at the target site. Although it’s not quite yet the leap into Neal Stephenson’s The Diamond Age with its science-based matter compilers – i.e. molecular assemblers – it’s definitely another step closer to making advanced feats of nanotechnology a part of every day life.
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This articles is written by : Nermeen Nabil Khear Abdelmalak
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