Micro/nano manipulation world

Abstract

Concerns nanomanipulation, defined as manipulation with precision 1mm to 10/spl mu/m. It uses scanning electron microscopy. It is at an early stage because we do not know much about the microphysics and the skills needed for micro/nano object handling. The differences between the micro and the macro worlds, and the difficulty of micro/nano manipulation originating from that gap are known, but no solution has been reported. We need a whole set of new robotics to cope with the difficulties of manipulations in micro and nano world, i.e. we need new manipulator mechanisms, control, and intelligence for micro and nano manipulation. We discuss the features of the micro/nano manipulation world and clarify the required functions for such a manipulation system. Then the paper proposes a micromanipulation system, a micro teleoperation system featuring manual task execution posture, an automatic manipulation system based on visual feedback control, and a pick-and-place forming method to realize optical quantum devices as a typical product of nano manipulation. The range of fields of application is discussed.