US Patent 7322622 - Silicon nanogrippers

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7322622.html

Nanotweezers have been developed by Daiken Chemical of Japan as a molecular positioning element using carbon nanotubes as positioning arms. This patent from another Japanese company is along the same lines but uses silicon as the material forming the nanoscale positioning arms. Claim 1 reads:

1. A nano-gripper comprising; a pair of arms disposed side by side, each arm having a base portion, the base portions of the arms being fixed to a base, each arm having a face at its front end, the front-end faces of the arms facing each other; and a protrusion with a tip formed on the front-end face of each arm, the tips of the protrusions facing each other, the pair of protrusions being etched to a silicon crystal disposed between the front-end faces, the silicon crystal having a silicon-oxide film parallel to a (100) face of the silicon crystal and perpendicular to the front-end faces; wherein each of the paired protrusions is a triangular-pyramidal silicon crystal with (011), (100), (111) side faces.