Atomic Force Microscopy Based Nanorobotics

Book excerpt: The atomic force microscope (AFM) has been successfully used to perform nanorobotic manipulation operations on nanoscale entities such as particles, nanotubes, nanowires, nanocrystals, and DNA since 1990s. There have been many progress on modeling, imaging, teleoperated or automated control, human-machine interfacing, instrumentation, and applications of AFM based nanorobotic manipulation systems in literature. This book aims to include all of such state-of-the-art progress in an organized, structured, and detailed manner as a reference book and also potentially a textbook in nanorobotics and any other nanoscale dynamics, systems and controls related research and education. Clearly written and well-organized, this text introduces designs and prototypes of the nanorobotic systems in detail with innovative principles of three-dimensional manipulation force microscopy and parallel imaging/manipulation force microscopy.