Nanohandling automation: Trends and current developments

Abstract

Automated robot-based nanomanipulation is one of the key challenges in microsystem technology and nanotechnology, which has recently been addressed by a rising number of R&D groups and companies all over the world. Controlled, reproducible assembly processes at the nanoscale will enable high-throughput manufacturing of revolutionary products and open up new application fields. The ultimate goal of these research activities is the development of automated nanomanipulation processes to build a bridge between existing precise handling strategies for micro and nanoscale objects and aspired high-throughput fabrication of microsystems and nanosystems. Despite the growing interest in automated nanomanipulation, there is hardly any publication that treats this research in a coherent and comprehensive way. This paper is an attempt to provide the researcher with an overview of the most important trends and developments in this rapidly expanding technology. It also informs the practising engineer and the engineering student about automation at the nanoscale level as well as about the promising fields of application. The latter can be of a very different nature as nanohandling is strongly interdisciplinary in character. This paper offers a deeper insight into nanohandling aspects of carbon nanotubes.