By David Shiga
Nanotechnologists have transformed what used to be a technical flaw in one of their premier atom-moving tools into a benefit that’s making nanoscale construction easier. Instead of lamenting how readily the tips of their scanning tunneling microscopes (STMs) crash into and damage underlying samples, a group of researchers has figured out how to exploit those crashes to build precise, atom-scale structures, including fences made of straight lines of silver atoms.
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In the October Nano Letters, Saw-Wai Hla of Ohio University in Athens and his colleagues show how to use tip crashes to create a supply of loose atoms for performing fundamental studies of quantum phenomena, “hand making” specific molecules, or building nanogadgetry atom by atom.