Digitizing Nanoscale Assembly

Oleg Gang, Professor at Columbia University, is working on digital fabrication of complex nanoscale materials. The idea is to convert the nanomaterial construction process into a generic voxel (volumetric pixel) method, that can build anything you want using programmable, self-assembling units. To construct nanomachines this way, we’ll need visualization tools, a general purpose 3d printer or self-assembly method, and appropriate modeling software. The applications of such technology would allow us to construct extremely intricate materials and 3d nanohardware, including 3d wiring at the nano scale.