Computation and Nanotechnology: Toward the Fabrication of Complex Hierarchical Structures

Enormous progress has been made in recent years in the nanostructuring of materials, and a variety of techniques are available for fabricating bulk materials with a desired nanostructure. However, the higher levels of organization have been neglected, and nanostructured materials are assembled into macroscopic structures using techniques that are not essentially different from those used for conventional materials. We argue that the creation of complex hierarchical systems, with specific structures from the nanoscale up through the macroscale, and especially post-Moore’s Law nanocomputers, will require a close alignment of computational and physical processes. * This report is an unedited draft of portions of the Editorial Preface, “Computation and Nanotechnology,” for the International Journal of Nanotechnology and Molecular Computation 1, 1