Towards automatic nanomanipulation at the atomic scale

Namomanipulation using atomic force or scanning tunnelling microscopy (AFM, STM) has attracted much attention among researchers in recent years. But even on an international scale, nanomanipulation is operated mostly in manual mode. A scientist carefully carries out each individual move of the manipulator tip in order to avoid a dead-end situation. The operator has to repeat similar tasks in the same tedious and error-prone way. If nanomanipulation is to come even close to fulfilling its scientific an economic potential, the bottleneck of manual operation must be eliminated. This paper presents our activities and suggestions for automatic nanomanipulation on the atomic scale