5. Conquering a nanoworld!

One of the great challenges of modern technology is to assemble a large number of nanometric components, densely packed onto a small surface area, to form complex circuits with fast charge transfer or state changes (such as quantum states), original physical properties and low energy consumption. The race towards miniaturization does not necessarily take place via the top-down route of reducing component size, but also, and increasingly, via the bottom-up route of designing nanosystems by assembling basic elements of matter: atoms, groups of atoms or molecules. These techniques are based on self-assembly. The evolution of nanofabrication techniques has enabled the emergence of structures with original functionalities, linked to their reduced scale. The assembly of quantum dots (or nano-islands) or semiconductor nanocrystals enables the design of nanoelectronic components. Examples include...