Someone is likely to prove me wrong, but I'm not sure that that foldamer engineering will bootstrap advanced APM. At best I suspect it may be a dispensable tool, much like one can use a screwdriver to pound a nail - though a hammer would be the better tool. On the other hand, there is no easy way to use a hammer as a screwdriver.
The most recent developments in structural DNA nanotechnology (DNA oligomers I believe fall under the class of foldamers) made me much more optimistic about a bootstrapping pathway that relies on foldamers indispensably. Like roughly described in the appendix of Radical Abundance. (Note that with indispensable I don't mean indisposable. That is I do think that they can should and must be stripped away once bootstrapping was successful.)
The main papers that made me more optimistic where these five:
1) Demonstration of localized hinges and sliding rails:
(Absoluterĺy essential for any robotics like action.)
Papers name: "Programmable motion of DNA origami mechanisms"
Found here: https://www.foresight.org/nanodot/?p=6430
Full open content: http://www.pnas.org/content/112/3/713.full.pdf
2) Hierarchical self assembly of structural DNA nanotechnology:
(Essential for more complex systems)
In the first step the normal method floppy DNA oligomers find and link. In the second step the finished assembled stiff cubic/hexagonal voxel grid building blocks self assemble by shape complementary (reversibly driven by varying salt concentration)
Papers name: 'Dynamic DNA devices and assemblies formed by shape-complementary, non-basepairing 3D components'
Found here: https://www.foresight.org/nanodot/?p=6606
Full open content: http://science.sciencemag.org/…EI&keytype=ref&siteid=sci
3) Bohr radius resolution manipulation with DNA nano-structures:
(Essential for early forms of mechanosynthesis)
Papers name: "Placing molecules with Bohr radius resolution using DNA origami"
Found here: https://www.foresight.org/nanodot/?p=6890
Somewhat hidden paper: http://bionano.physik.tu-muenc…/funke_NatureNano2015.pdf
Supplementary info paper (BIG): http://bionano.physik.tu-muenc…ke_NatureNano_2015_SI.pdf
4) Assembly of multi micron scale AP pegboards:
(Probably useful for organizing bigger systems via AP self centering pick and place that lacks atomic resolution.)
Papers name: "DNA brick crystals with prescribed depths"
Found here: https://www.foresight.org/nanodot/?p=6350
Full open content: https://yin.hms.harvard.edu/publications/2014.crystals.pdf
Supplementary info paper (BIG): https://yin.hms.harvard.edu/pu…ns/2014.crystals.sup1.pdf
5) Templated gold grwoth in AP DNA nanostructures:
(Maybe useful to include stiffer parts for tooltips though this does not look too controllable - bulging)
Found here: https://www.foresight.org/nanodot/?p=6324
Papers name: "Casting inorganic structures with DNA molds"
Full paper: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pm…60265/pdf/nihms641769.pdf
What I'm still eagerly waiting to see is:
A) Fast bi-stable electrostatic actuation of DNA hinge nano-structures via electric fields emanating from very small contacts on a chip surface.
B) Demonstration of AP single moiety mechanosynthesis with water synthesizable diamondoid minerals (quartz/pyrite/apatite/calcite). This hasn't been demonstrated in with macro-scale AFMs either.
I recently had some discussion defending the idea of advanced APM where I wrote a bit about my own interpretation of that pathway beyond of what is written in the appendix of Radical Abundance.
You can find this all the way at the bottom down here:
https://debunkingdenialism.com…omic-scale-manufacturing/
Sorry about the amount of links here, but I think they're relevant.
I think of SPMs as one tool of many that will be needed to bootstrap nanotechnology. That an STM has limitations is no different than other tools. Based on my reading of history, I think progress in nanotechnology will only take off once more "amateurs" can begin work on it.
I believe one issue that got in the way was lack of money or capital - and uncertain demand. While a determined amateur can build a marginally working inexpensive hobby STM, buyers of commercial systems have higher expectations and getting a refined product to market is not cheap. Of course, back then we didn't have Kickstarter, GoFundMe, IndieGoGo, or RocketHub as options to raise capital and establish a seed of potential customers.
I do too think of SPM as one tool of many that will play an important role.
I think parallel AFM in the form of mechanosynthesis and pick and place action at the micro and nanoscale will do a big part of the work. Single tip synthesis might be useful for figuring out reactions or putting bigger blocks together but building up a diamondoid assembler with a single macro-scale AFM (the early idea now dismissed by Eric Drexler) by now seems to me like jumping to the moon with just your legs - metaphorical speaking.
The problem I feel is that with what is archivable by DIY means and a little more professional kickstarter funded means (provided it gets funded) is not sufficient for making meaningful bootstrapping progress.
I feel that some very essential tools will not make it to a widely available DIY state (e.g. cryo TEM tomography, UHV Systems - except something like my crazy micro UHV system idea miraculously works out, automatic pipetting systems ... to a lesser degree as I'll mention further below)
For the reasons I elaborated above I think that systems of hierarchically self assembled foldamers will play a major role too beside SPM. Thus I'm thinking of using an top down AFM to picture and interact with bottom up foldamer structures. And those need some of these additional capabilities.
About kickstarter funding:
Who is really interested in playing around with an relatively cheap but not extremely toy-like cheap ~999$ SPM device beside a handful of geeks? I mean right now and not when it becomes really interesting due to APM bootstrapping beginning to succeed. (Kind of a "who would need a computer in his home" situation.)
I doubt that major parts of bootstrapping will be done by a large DIY community. (I'm not happy about that)
I think it's not unlikely that much of the bootstrapping will happen in service provider labs for early nanotech medical companies.
Sadly this could quite likely result in that the products will be accompanied with a lot of closed source problems restrictions and regulations.
I'm not saying that I'm certain that a cheap SPM kickstarter project won't work out funding wise.
I just doubt that DIY to semi professional SPM living-room devices will play a major role in bootstrapping.
In the macrocosm with repraps there's a lot less that can't be done DIY or is hard to do DIY.
Also the products have immediate usability value.
Even with these things in its favours evolution of repraps isn't crazy fast.
To drift a bit off-topic:
We still don't have a self replicating 3D printer that not only prints but also assembles itself.
I think this should be possible (not a small machine) and could drive the cost fo 3D printers down further ~50% and give additional
6DOF robotic pick and place capability (remember DIY massive automatic robotic pipetting system for DNA nanotech I mentioned before?)
Also such a self replicating pick and place robot would demonstrate principles for self replication that uses standard prefabricated parts as building blocks. These principles then could at least in part be applied to nanosytems out of AP self assembled foldamer parts. And much later the principles could be used in the second assembly layer of advanced nanofactories - albeit with a wider less compact cycle meaning even more less generic parts.
A self assembling macro robot is what I'm attempting with my reprec project Idea:
http://reprap.org/wiki/RepRec
This will soon grow, I had some major Ideas today.
An other pathway for cost reduction beside reprap style cost reduction is miniaturization like in the computer industry.
This pathway is big-company centric since obviously MEMS production isn't DIY doable.
Miniaturisation of SPMs seems not to progress fast. There are some MEMS AFM approaches that still need humongous UHV systems.
I'm not aware of any attempts of parallelizing SPMs that wield atomic resolution yet (millipede e.g. was never meant to have atomic resolution).
Sooner or later there might come up the possibility of more or less self assembled nano AFMs ... ok I'm drifting off ...