Nanoscale Devices: Fabrication, Functionalization, and Accessibility from the Macroscopic World

The second half of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty first have been characterized by the most impressive industrial revolution ever seen. In - proximately 40years, the complexity of integrated circuits (ICs) has increased by a 9 factor of 10 , with a corresponding reduction of the cost per bit by eight orders of magnitude. Not only has this evolution allowed dramatic progress in allscientific fields (large computers, space probes, etc.), but also has fueled the economic...