Massively Parallel Nanorobotics With Multi-Tip Scanning Probe Microscopes

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The potential applications of nanometer-scale devices and systems are revolutionary. They range from miniscule computers and nanoelectromechanical systems (NEMS), to programmable artificial cells and nanorobots capable of entering cells and repairing them. A promising approach for building such nanostructures consists of assembling molecular-sized building blocks by using Scanning Probe Microscopes (SPMs) as robots. Techniques for SPM nanomanipulation, which are being developed at USC and a few other laboratories, appear to be of wide applicability, but suffer from poor throughput because single-tip SPM operations are sequential. The primary goal of this project is to develop high-throughput, massively parallel SPM techniques for nanomanipulation with multi-tip arrays, which are currently being developed at several laboratories, worldwide. A secondary goal is to investigate novel nanomanipulation techniques that use an SPM tip array to shape an electrostatic potential over a sample surface, thereby moving single nanoparticles or groups of particles in a controlled fashion.The emphasis of the research is on algorithm development, by using methods from the fields of algorithm design, geometric modeling, robotics and computational geometry. The algorithms will be tested by simulation studies, and also by implementation with physical tip arrays when these become available.