Continuous Feeding for Nanorobotic Mass Transport

Mass transport at attogram (10-18 g) level inside, from, between, and into nanochannels is of growing interest from both fundamental and application perspectives. Nanorobotic manipulation inside a transmission electron microscope (TEM) enables these investigations through its ability to position and assemble pipes, to deliver the mass in a controlled way, and to tune and characterize these systems in situ. Mass transport systems at this scale provide a platform for the investigation of nanofluidics and can serve as components for nanomanufacturing such as electromigration-based deposition (EMBD) for prototyping nanostructures. In such applications, the limited mass initially encapsulated inside a CNT will obviously become a bottle neck. Continuous mass feeding, which involves the mass flow into a CNT from a reservoir, is proposed as a solution. This technique enabled a new path for the design of an EMBD system. As a general-purposed nanofabrication process, EMBD will enable a variety of applications such as nanorobotic arc welding and assembly, nanoelectrodes direct writing, and nanoscale metallurgy.