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Letter

Nature Materials 4, 892–895 (1 December 2005) | doi:10.1038/nmat1529

Trapping and moving metal atoms with a six-leg molecule

Leo Gross , Karl-Heinz Rieder , Francesca Moresco , Sladjana M. Stojkovic , Andr|[eacute]| Gourdon & Christian Joachim

Putting to work a molecule able to collect and carry adatoms in a controlled way on a surface is a solution for fabricating atomic structures atom by atom. Investigations have shown that the interaction of an organic molecule with the surface of a metal can induce surface reconstruction down to the atomic scale.