Early diamondoid nanosystem pixel (direct path)

(wiki-TODO: Fix image. This is NOT a nanofactory pixel. There is no strong factory style optimizations yet.)

Conceptual sketch illustrating the idea of an "early diamondoid nanosystem pixel" or "early replicative pixel" for short. This is an attempt to evade the shortcomings of ultra-compact monolithic-machine molecular assemblers as bootstrapping tools. In order to find a perhaps more viable direct path. See: Proto-assembler (outdated). Evading assemblers as described in the early Engines of Creation (but shunned in the technical analysis Nanosystems), Evading assemblers as presented in KSRM, and evading assemblers as discussed in some designs that supposedly evade them but really just change to "stuck to surface". (See: Discussion of proposed nanofactory designs.) Note that "stuck to a surface" is only a part of the distinction that is insufficient standing alone. – Link to vectorgraphic version.

This page covers considerations regarding an early crystolecule system
that can eventually approach non-compact selfreplicative capability.
This page is not about molecular assemblers.
Specifically not ones in the bootstrapping context: Proto-assembler (outdated).
Also not about molecular assemblers stuck onto a chip like in some old concepts (Chris Phoenix 2003).
See: Discussion of proposed nanofactory designs.

Semi reasonable seeming szenario

Positive formulation:

• a non-compact system expanding to the size it wants to be in order to eventually reach selfreplicativity
• an open-exterior nano-system, i.e. there's no vacuum box enclosing an eventually "replicative unit pixel"
  (see vacuum handling below)
• an non-monolithic open-borders nanosystem (i.e. components from adjacent "replicative unit pixel" can cross over to collaborate)
• strong separation of concerns in sub-systems e.g. a carrier chassis just to carry subsystems around

Due to non-compactness:

• enough space to balance mechanosynthesizers with stick-n-placers (Level throughput balancing)
• enough space for eventual early automation where ist makes sense
  e.g. specialized automated strut crystolecule assembler factorylets

Regarding automation & functional redundancy:
Note that this is by no means an advanced mature factory style nanofactory with yet.
No one-atom-per-station operations and such.
Any functional redundancy from throughput balancing and limited automation is solely to
increase feasibility of buildability and to facilitate faster system scaling.
Early nanoscale quantity sellable products would help in
making this pathway more ecomomically feasible though.
Making some of the above for-scaling-necessary-optimizations easier.

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Negative formulation: Unlike an molecular assembler

• not ultra-compact in volume - not forced in a box of desired size
• no expanding vacuum hull - and no box enclosing the whole system as part of the nanosystem
• no monolithic closed-borders design (i.e. adjacent subsystems can cross over)
• no whole system mobility

On efficiency and optimization – and that it is not totally irrelevant even in early systems

No high level optimization yet (too big for early system)

There is no high degree of optimization in such early systems yet.
There is no assembly line assembly over dozens or hundreds of stations
for hundreds or thousands of standardized part types.
This would make a pixel very huge and this …
★ go well beyond what would be to be expected in early systems.
★ be something one would expect in a gem-gum factory pixel of an advanced advanced Ggemstone metamaterial on chip factory

Basic minimal optimization bringing speed from "too low even for early systems" to adequate

There is a minimum amount of optimization in the sense of
matching the amount of mechanosynthesis stages to the amount of stick-n-place assembly stages
Such an optimization to avoid the former of being a significant bottleneck.
This gives a equally significant speedup at …
★ a reasonable cost of increase of system size.
★ a small factor of overall increase in overall atom count

❓ Why would it be just a small factor in increase in overall atom count?
Isn't it many mechanosynthesis stages per stick-n-place stage and would thus be a huge factor in increase in atom count?

➡️ Not if other parts than the mechanosynthesis stages are the dominant parts in atom count to begin with.
And that seems very likely to be the case.
The amount of unconditionally needed infrastructure needed is not to be underestimated.
Even if most of digital control is still factored out of the nanosystem still dealt with by external existing computing technology.
And there is more than just data lines ans a few status (and debug) bits for a minimal control system remaining in there.

Side note:
Actually that amount of insfrastucture is one of several reasons why not to go for the idea of a Proto-assembler (outdated).
See: Replication backpack overhead
One really does not want to unnecessarily replicate infrastructure but share it.
One want's to avoid having a large part of the subsystems unnecessarily bottlenecked out.
This may well go beyond just the mechanosynthesis stages being bottlenecked ins a Proto-assembler (outdated).
Plus there are several other reasons not to go for them.
See page: Why ultra-compact molecular assemblers are a bad and long outdated idea

On even earlier systems still working heavily with SPM tips

There is …
★ macro-to-nano SPM-based mechanosynthesis
★ macro-to-nano SPM-based stick-n-place assembly (See: Potential early crystolecular mechanisms)
Here similarly many of the former per one of the latter seem like a natural choice.

Merging to naoscale streams of heterogeneous crystolecule types
into a single heterogeneous stream via the macroscale is an additional challenge here to be aware of.
It may well form it's own bottleneck.

The order these two SPM based procsses become available nano-to-nano is as of yet (2026) still rather unclear.
Same with how long that asymmetry will persist.

★ If the former mechanosynthesis goes nano-to-nano first the speed difference gets reduced
★ If the latter mechanosynthesis goes nano-to-nano first the speed difference gets reduced
But it gets increasingly speculative on what happens in this transition phase.

For just one ting to remember: Efficiency is not necessarily irrelevant even for early systems.
And the idea of a proto-assembler (outdated) is especially bad at efficiency beside other tings.
See: Why ultra-compact molecular assemblers are too inefficient

Vacuum handling

Only the mechanosynthesis happens in PPV (assembly level 1).
Assembly of crystolecules to assemblies of them (assembly level 2) is done in clean air.
For that a macroscale enclosing cleanroom box (or anything better) suffices.

Vacuum chambers for mechanosynthesis are hard non-expandable and as big as needed.
They can be as big as permitted by the crystolecule assembly mechanism.
Smaller might be preferable for more modularity.

See main page "vacuum handling" for details on expelling the
fully mechanosynthesized and passivated crystlecules out into clean air space.

Vacuum chambers are non-momolithic out of many crystolecules held together by
vdW force or form closing interlock. They are assembled in clean air.

The vacuum just needs a single exponential pump-down using the
lockout mechanism as positive displacement pump.
From then on no pumping is needed because the mechanism has
perfectly zero gas molecule back-flow during crystolecule lockout.
Tunneling is FAPP ignorable.

See: Vacuum lockout

(wiki-TODO: Review and improve section on vacuum.)

So a good design for the mechanosynthesis stages of early diamondoid nanosystem pixels would be …
★ just big enough for locking out the biggest crystolecules made by the a mechanosynthesis stage and
★ still notably smaller than the mechanosynthesis stage itself.
Recursive case: locking out parts of a vacuum lockout mechanism in just a few parts.

Side-note: This is indirectly implying that the PPV mechanosynthesis stage is a multi part assembly.
If one wants larger flexure mechanisms (which come with their own challenges)
then some connection mechanism stronger than mere vdW joints need to be used for all
from the flexing severely loaded parts.

Gas tightness of seams of nonbonded assemblies

This is a self suggesting concern to look at.
Most likely this can be deals with
but one may still want to minimize the amount of reams concatcing sliding seals.
The {100} cuboid edges with cut off single bonded methyls can, when meeting each other,
form channels that may be big enough for the smalles molecules and ions (He, H, H+) to diffuse through.
Avoid those e.g. by picking other crystal axes. And stay deeply cooled leaving just He mobile.

What about larger scale vacuum?

Several aspects to this.

★ how many sub-components i.e. crystolecule part size relative to lockout chamber size'
– Choosing few parts of very large size crystolecule parts over many small ones
– The bigger the parts the bigger the door needs to be.

★ relative scale … ratio between vacuum chamber volume and lockout chamber volume
– a lockout chamber big enough for the an entire mechanosynthesis stage

★ absolute scale … overall vacuum camber and lockout chamber volume
– size of convenient sized crystolecules,
– size of an entire mechanosynthesis stage
– or even bigger an entire early diamondoid nanosystem pixel or multiple of them

★ Rigid volume and lock-out or gradually expanding vaccum volume'
– rigid: the size of the parts that can be locked out is limited by the lock out chambers volume
– expandable: the problem of lock out is not solved but only shifted
… there is no real lock out and the expansion volume is on the same scale as the main vacuum volume
… ultimately one can't avoid lockout => broken seal means need for re-esstablishing vacuum
– expandable: introduces many seams and other complications

Why not a big vacuum chamber in just a few big monolitic crystolecule pieces?

Huge monolithic vacuum chamber crystolecules,
i.e. size of a mechanosynthesis stage (or bigger),
would be a very big crystolecule that is …
★ extremely (impossibly?) difficult to make with early macro-to nano SPM based mechanosynthesis systems and
★ also challenging for early nano-robotic mechanosynthesis to make.

Also big bespoke monolithic crystolecule designs design may set a bad precedent
when it comes to "design for crystolecule reusability". See:
★ Recycling & Gem-gum waste crisis
★ Exponential growth of design space by linear growth in atom count
★ Intentional incompatibility for customer lock in

Further there is the issue that
with the assembled mechanosynthesis stage needing to fit into the vacuum chamber
the (here assumed to be) few and big parts of the vaccuum chamber need to fit
★ into the mechanosynthesis stage and also
★ through the vacuum lockout too.
Almost a chicken egg situation.
Especially when (unreasonably) assuming in place mechanosynthesis as a hard constraint.

One gets vacuum lockout as big as the vacuum chamber itself.
And this combined with attempts to expand the vacuum further out than critically needed
is then what is leading to (and has historically led) to a plurality of
wild/adventurous/complicated expanding vacuum camber designs/ideas.
More in next section.

Why not a big vacuum chamber out of many pieces that allow for volume expansion?

Shifting walls, unfolding walls, unrolling walls, telescoping volumes.
There are many things have been brought up.
See: Expanding vacuum envelop ideas
All these seem like a pain to design, debug, and get working eventually, and as something that
one would really want to avoid if one can help it.
And one can help it. See: Zero backflow vacuum lockout

Generally the idea of big monolithic vacuum chambers
that are big enough to fit the mechanosynthesis stage and associated infrastructure too
is a driver towards more proto assembler like designs.
(e.g. the box rotatedly extruding box of same size idea)
with all the associated problems waiting there.

Rigid larger scale vacuum chamber lockout via zero back-flow gas-locks (sensible for later)

The bigger the volume the harder it gets to attain and retain PPV.
So this is better used as a backup and pre-vacuum level for more advanced systems.
Early systems ca just use conventional macroscale UV chambers perhaps even inert gas.

Every wall of a vacuum chamber larger covering an entire early diamondoid nanosystem pixel (or good fraction of it)
would pose a severe barrier against sharing of infrastructure by affording tight feed through of various stuff.
It seems to become sensible when going to a third assembly level with larger robotic stages fitting lockout to that size.
That may well cover more than just one single early diamondoid nanosystem pixel and already go into more advanced systems.

Potentially individually movable subsystems

This is obviously hopelessly incomplete ATM.

Core subsystems

• modular expandable base rail-grid
• electrostatic receiver (static motors?)
• mechanical demultiplexer
• subsystem carrier chassis (moving motors? motor backpack)
• mechanical through joint motion threading
  (challenging as this crosses systems)

Assembly stages:

• crystolecule stick-n-place stage
• mechanosynthesis stage (eventually with gas-tight walls and zero-backflow airlock)

Basic compute ★ cam follower unit for nonlinear robot control ?? ★ stepper control stuff? coarse to fine swithcing ??

Crystolecule recomposition management subsystems:

• part dispenser magazines carried carried on wide attachment chains
  giving a lot of part storage density like in movable libraries but faster access

Very early very simple automation:

• rail assembly factorylet (crystolecule assembly to standard parts like: rails, struts, chains, …) (think: cranked box acting like a (un)zipper)

Machine elements

These are the sub-systems of the sub-systems.
Typically many off them rigidly connected.
See: Crystolecule based machine elements

Related

• Why ultra-compact molecular assemblers are too difficult
• Why ultra-compact molecular assemblers are too inefficient
• Why ultra-compact molecular assemblers are not desirable
• Replication backpack overhead

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• Physics change aware scale transposed prototyping:
• RepRec pick-and-place robots (GemGum)
• ReChain frame systems
• The DAPMAT demo project

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• Early crystolecule mechanisms

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• Pixel in mature systems: Gem-gum factory pixel

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• Kind of an analogy along the incremental path:
  Modular molecular composite nanosystem

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• self replication, bootstrapping, autogenous, bridging the gaps

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• Mixed path
• Incremental path analogy: Modular molecular composite nanosystem
• System complexity scaling with positional assembly

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• Moses2014
• Ambots
• 2D rail-frame based distributed modular pick-place assembly system

External links

Good inspiring sources.
A lot needs to be adapted to the nanoscale physics and context.
Most electrics needs to be replaced by mechanics which is perhaps the most challenging part (and perhaps the most volume consuming part).

Moses2013

Self-replicating blocky-granular gantrybot pick-n-place robots on a square grid of rail-tracks.
See Moses2013

Ambots

An interesting modular system architecture with some relevant aspects:

• Ambots on YouTube
• Ambots landing page

Note that Ambots has a specialized unit that is just for carrying otherwisely specialized units around that can not move on their own.
Ambots wheels on flat ground would not be feasible for nanoscale at all of course.
Rather than a lot of self contained autonomy in the Ambost case
in the case here (reversible) mechanical coupling to drive chains in a rail network via clutches is needed.
Reciprocative chains for signalling could even be as simple as cuboids in a channel. Not even interlocking.
The trick being using vdW-force and/or push-back spring at the end.