Assembly level 1 (gem-gum factory)

The From molecule-fragment to crystolecule assembly level.

Summarized characteristics:

• In goes: fully preprocessed moieties on reusable tools
• Out goes: assembled crystolecules
• Where processing is done: robotic mechanosyntesis cores in specialized assembly lines.
• What processing is done: force applying mechanosynthesis in molecular mills
  very stiff bulky design of mill wheels and assembly lines – hard-coded operation

• This is the third processing step after the the two preprocessing steps.
• This is the first real assembly level where small parts are getting put together to much bigger parts.

About the products of this assembly levels – the crystolecules

Assembled are typically small diamondoid or more generally gemstone-like crystolecule.

• Either structural often with some bonds intentionally left open. See: crystolecule fragments
• Or small machine elements like shafts and bearings. See:
• Small gemstone-like molecular elements including small diamondoid crystolecular machine element

Pictures and animations of atomistically modelled examples of
diamondoid crystolecules examples can be found here:Examples of diamondoid molecular machine elements

Bigger machine elements (functionally minimal per definition) (crystolecular units) may be too big for this assembly level. So at this assembly level only structural parts of them can be made. and assembly has to wait for the next assembly level.

Terminology quickly gets confusing.
See: Terminology for parts

Product reusability

Crystolecules are most useful when they are designed to be reusable standard models.
For any kind of conceivable nano-system holds:
From every type (or set of types) of DMEs an enormous number of identical copies is needed.
(The reasons for this are nontrivial and lie in data-compression.)

Therefore for an efficient system
lots of specialized building chambers in
lots of specialized assembly lines for the different crystolecules makes sense.
This naturally leads to the on-chip nanofactory design.

Examples for a sets of standard parts (producible by specialized assembly lines) are e.g.:

• set for minimal dynamic systems.
  
• mechanical circuit elements

Lack of reversibility on the first assembly level

Main page: Assembly level 2 (gem-gum factory)

A note on recycling: Mechanosynthesis is not necessarily reversible.
That is: It is most likely not reversible in some processing steps. Not all.

If diamond is used as building material then the carbon atoms that get bound as diamond (or similar) into the products
can only be brought back to the biosphere by burning of the crystolecules. (See: Diamondoid waste incineration.)
There are other diamondoid materials that are slightly water soluble and
may allow for an unattended route back to the biosphere.

Silicon carbide (aka moissanite) a base material that is some properties superior to diamond.
and a material that is isostrucural to diamond (and thus also diamondoid) is not at all combustible.
So only something like chemical dissolution in highly aggressive hot acids is a last resort option. See: Diamondoid waste incineration, Recycling, Spill prevention guideline, ...

Related

• Previous processing step: preprocessing step 2 (gem-gum factory)
• Next processing step: assembly level 2 (gem-gum factory)
• Assembly levels
• Productive Nanosystems From molecules to superproducts
• Gemstone metamaterial on chip factory