Implementation of perception and action at nanoscale

Abstract: Real time combination of nanosensors and nanoactuators with virtual reality environment and multisensorial interfaces enable us to efficiently act and perceive at nanoscale. Advanced manipulation of nanoobjects and new strategies for scientific education are the key motivations. We have no existing intuitive representation of the nanoworld ruled by laws foreign to our experience. A central challenge is then the construction of nanoworld simulacrum that we can start to visit and to explore. In this nanoworld simulacrum, object identifications will be based on probed entity physical and chemical intrinsic properties, on their interactions with sensors and on the final choices made in building a multisensorial interface so that these objects become coherent elements of the human sphere of action and perception. Here we describe a 1D virtual nanomanipulator, part of the Cit\'e des Sciences EXPO NANO in Paris, that is the first realization based on this program.