Improved methods, systems and devices for mechanosynthesis, including those that involve the bulk chemical preparation of tips, multiple tips on a presentation surface, and multiple tips used sequentially in a thermodynamic cascade. These improvements can simplify starting requirements, improve versatility, and reduce equipment and process complexity.

Compositions and methods of the present disclosure provide for staged assembly of nucleic acid microstructures made of an array of x number of polynucleotide tiles, where each of the polynucleotide tiles is a polygon configuration and is made from a single-stranded helical polynucleotide scaffold and a plurality of single-stranded polynucleotide staple strands of y number of unique staple sequences corresponding to the selected tile configuration, the y number of unique staple sequences capable of being constant for any value of x.

Provided are nanograting structures and methods of fabrication thereof that allow for stable, robust gratings and nanostructure embedded gratings that enhance electromagnetic field, fluorescence, and photothermal coupling through surface plasmon or, photonic resonance. The gratings produced exhibit long term stability of the grating structure and improved shelf life without degradation of the properties such as fluorescence enhancement. Embodiments of the invention build nanograting structures layer-by-layer to optimize structural and optical properties and to enhance durability.

A biosensor electrode comprises comprising a porous structure comprising a plurality of metal ligaments and a plurality of pores; and at least one carbon nanotube structure embedded in the porous structure and comprising a plurality of carbon nanotubes joined end to end by van der Waals attractive force, wherein the plurality of carbon nanotubes are arranged along a same direction.

Convergent nanofabrication and nanoassembly methods are disclosed. Molecules and/or nanostructures are bound to supported binding tools and manipulated to bond together in desired locations and orientations to yield desired precise structures. Methods for precise fabrication of materials including diamond, graphene, nanotube, -SiC (and precise modifications thereof, e.g. color centers for quantum computation and information processing and storage), halite structured materials including MgO, MgS, TiC, VN, ScN, precisely Mn doped ScN, NbN, HfC, TaC, Hf.sub.xTa.sub.yC, and metals, and graphenoid structures for photovoltaic devices are disclosed. Systems disclosed performing these methods can fabricate systems with similar capabilities, enabling allo- or self-replication, and have capabilities including: conversion and storage of energy; obtainment and processing of matter from abundant environmental sources including on other planets and fabrication of desired articles using same; converting wind power (esp. high altitude wind) to electricity with concurrent capture of CO.sub.2 and conversion thereof to useful feedstocks e.g. by reaction with CH.sub.4 from oceanic methane clathrates; growth of algae crops including food. Fabrication of arbitrarily long carbon nanotubes enable construction of orbital elevators.

Provided are nanograting structures and methods of fabrication thereof that allow for stable, robust gratings and nanostructure embedded gratings that enhance electromagnetic field, fluorescence, and photothermal coupling through surface plasmon or, photonic resonance. The gratings produced exhibit long term stability of the grating structure and improved shelf life without degradation of the properties such as fluorescence enhancement. Embodiments of the invention build nanograting structures layer-by-layer to optimize structural and optical properties and to enhance durability.

The present disclosure relates to the alignment of moieties (e.g., nanoparticles and/or nanowires) into prescribed architectures on two- and/or three-dimensional substrates (e.g., nucleic acid nanostructures/crystals). The present disclosure also relates to a nucleic acid (e.g., DNA) lithography method that includes, in some embodiments, adsorbing a bare nucleic acid nanostructure onto a surface of a substrate, and etching the surface of the substrate containing the bare nucleic acid nanostructure, thereby producing a patterned substrate.

Methods, systems, and devices are described which facilitate mechanosynthesis through the sequential use of a plurality of tips, each of which may have a different affinity for feedstock, thereby allowing tip to tip transfers which enhance system versatility and reduce equipment complexity.

A method of assembly of micro/nano-scale objects into lattice or truss structures.

The present invention generally relates to nanofabrication and, in some embodiments, to methods of synthesizing selectively binding patched nanoparticles and the devices that can be made from them. In some embodiments, the invention relates to methods of assembling arbitrarily shaped structures from patched nanocubes and the devices and uses that follow. For example, nanocube building blocks may be patched by stamping their faces with a selectively binding chemical species (e.g. DNA, antibody-antigen pairs, etc.), or by using self-assembly to attach to the nanocubes multiple selectively binding patch species whose immiscibility can be preprogrammed. Arbitrarily shaped structures can then be designed and assembled by deciding which faces will be bonded to each other in some target structure and combining nanocubes that have selectively binding patches on those faces. Other aspects of the invention are also directed to methods of making such nanocubes or other nanoparticles, methods of forming such nanocubes.