[2606.13876] Towards Atom-by-Atom Fabrication: Mechanosynthetic donation and abstraction

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Condensed Matter > Materials Science

arXiv:2606.13876 (cond-mat)

[Submitted on 11 Jun 2026]

Title:Towards Atom-by-Atom Fabrication: Mechanosynthetic donation and abstraction

Authors:Brandon Blue, Mathieu Morin, Alex Inayeh, Rosemary Cranston, Cameron J. Mackie, Marc Savoie, Adam Bottomley, Christian J. Imperiale, Zehra Ahmed, Rafik Addou, Aly Asani, Eduardo Barrera-Ramirez, Jeremy Barton, Doreen Cheng, Megan Cowie, Chris Deimert, Tyler Enright, James Zhangming Fan, Robert A. Freitas Jr, Alan T.K. Godfrey, Ryan Groome, Si Yue Guo, Kareem A. Clarcia, Aru Hill, Taleana Huff, Mark Jobes, Robert J. Kirby, Sam Lilak, Hadiya Ma, Adam C. Maahs, Oliver MacLean, Steven M. Maley, Michael Marshall, Terry McCallum, Ralph Merkle, Matthew Moses, Jonathan Myall, Ryan Plumadore, Adam Powell, Henry Rodriguez, Sam Rohe, Luis Sandoval, Khalil Sayed-Akhmad, Benjamin Scheffel, Kashif Tanveer, Bheeshmon Thanabalasingam, Denis A.B. Therien, Janice L. Wong, Reid Wotton, Cristina Yu, Damian G. Allis, Michael Drew, Matthew R. Kennedy, Tait Takatani, Marco Taucer, Dušan Vobornik, Ryan Yamachika, Mathieu Durand<br>View a PDF of the paper titled Towards Atom-by-Atom Fabrication: Mechanosynthetic donation and abstraction, by Brandon Blue and 57 other authors

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Abstract:Enabled by inverted-mode scanning tunneling microscopy (IM-STM) and the use of functionalized molecular tools, we demonstrate positionally-controlled mechanosynthetic addition (donation) of carbon and subtraction (abstraction) of silicon atoms on a model build site: atomically clean and crystalline Si(100). The resulting structures represent the first demonstrations of an emerging ability to manipulate radical chemistry with positional control of specific atoms and moieties in 3D. Furthermore, by comparing the behavior of molecular tools designed for atomic donation versus abstraction, we highlight general principles governing molecular tool design for selective and reliable mechanosynthetic functionality.

Comments:<br>17 pages, 5 figures. Supplementary Information is available upon request

Subjects:

Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci)

Cite as:<br>arXiv:2606.13876 [cond-mat.mtrl-sci]

(or<br>arXiv:2606.13876v1 [cond-mat.mtrl-sci] for this version)

https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2606.13876

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arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite (pending registration)

Submission history<br>From: Brandon Blue [view email]<br>[v1]<br>Thu, 11 Jun 2026 20:00:06 UTC (1,248 KB)

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