TY - JOUR A1 - Green, Matthew F. B. A1 - Esat, Taner A1 - Wagner, Christian A1 - Leinen, Philipp A1 - Grötsch, Alexander A1 - Tautz, F. Stefan A1 - Temirov, Ruslan T1 - Patterning a hydrogen-bonded molecular monolayer with a hand-controlled scanning probe microscope JF - Beilstein Journal of Nanotechnology PY - 2014/// VL - 5 SP - 1926 EP - 1932 SN - 2190-4286 DO - 10.3762/bjnano.5.203 PB - Beilstein-Institut JA - Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. UR - https://doi.org/10.3762/bjnano.5.203 KW - atomic force microscopy (AFM) KW - scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) KW - single-molecule manipulation KW - 3,4,9,10-perylene tetracarboxylic acid dianhydride (PTCDA) N2 - One of the paramount goals in nanotechnology is molecular-scale functional design, which includes arranging molecules into complex structures at will. The first steps towards this goal were made through the invention of the scanning probe microscope (SPM), which put single-atom and single-molecule manipulation into practice for the first time. Extending the controlled manipulation to larger molecules is expected to multiply the potential of engineered nanostructures. Here we report an enhancement of the SPM technique that makes the manipulation of large molecular adsorbates much more effective. By using a commercial motion tracking system, we couple the movements of an operator's hand to the sub-angstrom precise positioning of an SPM tip. Literally moving the tip by hand we write a nanoscale structure in a monolayer of large molecules, thereby showing that our method allows for the successful execution of complex manipulation protocols even when the potential energy surface that governs the interaction behaviour of the manipulated nanoscale object(s) is largely unknown. ER -