Diffusion slowdown blockade

When going to larger sizes one faces:

• much lower speeds – typically much below the speed of sound
• much larger distances
• => much much lower random part encounter rates

The encounter rate of small molecule sized parts at the nanoscale due to thermal motion is mindbogglingly high.
To get an intuitive feel about just how much macroscale is at a disadvantage see page: The speed of atoms

This obstacle can be hit when scaling termination control and site addressability in
technologies that use thermally driven self-assembly to rather large scales.
Like e.g. already the casein the higher selfassembly levels of structural DNA nanotechnology.

Delineation to slowdown from finding sparse binding partners

This can lead to severe slowdown. But this can be easier fixed by switching to other strategies like going from more self finding to more self folding

• more concretely: templating strands in structural DNA nanotechnology
• more abstractly: increasing effective concentration

The issue is that even with that optimized to the maximum the diffusion speed blockade still remains.

Related

• Nanoscale style machinery at the macroscale

External links

(wiki-TODO: Add links to videos of macroscale demos of selfassembly of 3D printed virus-shell models with magnets inside.)