Top down positional assembly
From apm
This is about:
- Using (A) macrsocale to mesoscale robotic devices to
- assemble (B) nanoscale to microscale (and eventually larger) atomically precise products.
Especially in the context of bootstrapping towards advanced productive nanosystems.
Delineation
Top down positional assembly is not to be confuses with: Top-down manufacturing
Top-down manufacturing also includes things like photo-lithography which is not positional assembly.
Examples
(A) – Listed in increasing size of manipulabe parts:
- SPM microscopes for active manipulations of very small parts down to single atoms
- MEMS grippers for manipulating parts big enough to be grippable by them
(B) – Listed in increasing size of manipulated parts:
- Piezomechanosynthesis - direct path
- Folded-foldamer pushing approach
- Robo approach in top-down context (manipulating really large finished self-assemblies)
