Nanoengineering - Engineering on the Molecular Scale

Advances in nanotechnology have built on advances in microscopy. As well as allowing molecules to be imaged, the Scanning Tunnelling Microscope (patented in 1982) allowed researchers to manipulate them by picking up and moving individual atoms. This is the essence of 'bottom up' or molecular nanotechnology - the notion that molecular structures can be built atom-by-atom.