Virtual Tooling for Nanoassembly and Nanomanipulations

Abstract

Atomic force microscopy (AFM) (Binning et al., Phys Rev Lett 56:930–933, 1986) has been used as a nanomanipulation tool recently because it not only has high resolution scanning ability but also can be controlled as an end-effector in the nanoenvironment (Junno et al., Appl Phys Lett 66:3627–3629, 1995). There are several challenging problems including controller design with relatively large thermal drift and other uncertainties, real-time positioning and manipulation control with sensor feedback, and nanosensing and manipulation planning. In the last decade, many researchers are working on these problems and some methods have been proposed that solved these problems partially (Chen et al., IEEE Trans Autom Sci Eng 3:208–217, 2006; Li et al., IEEE Trans Nanotechnol 4:605–614, 2005; Resch et al., Langmuir 14:6613–6616, 1998; Hansen et al., Nanotechnology 9:337–342, 1998; Sitti, IEEE ASME Trans Mechatron 9:343–348, 2004). However, the problem caused by single tip interaction is still hindering its efficiency especially in handling nanoparticles/nano-objects to form patterns or nanostructures.

Tools are usually designed and used for object handling or other tasks especially for having higher efficiency and accuracy or coping with various uncertainties on task performing. We proposed a concept of virtual nanohand which mimicking multi-fingered hand and controlling an AFM tip to form a virtual tool for achieving stable nano manipulation and nanoassembly. The nanohand strategy is implemented by moving the AFM tip to a set of predefined trajectories in relative high frequency. It allows us easily to design and apply various virtual tools for coping with requirements in nanomanipulation. This virtual tooling strategy is a solution with good potential on realizing high efficiency nanoassembly and nanomanipulation.