Interesting article about nanoswitches and how this technology enables the self-assembly of molecules. This actually does help progress many efforts such as molecular memory devices, photovoltaics, gas sensors, light emission, etc. However, I see the potential use in nanobot technology as it relates to future alignment mappings with the brain.
Molecular nanoswitch: calculated adsorption geometry of porphine adsorbed at copper bridge site (credit: Moritz Müller et al./J. Chem. Phys.)
Technical University of Munich (TUM) researchers have simulated a self-assembling molecular nanoswitch in a supercomputer study.
As with other current research in bottom-up self-assembly nanoscale techniques, the goal is to further miniaturize electronic devices, overcoming the physical limits of currently used top-down procedures such as photolithography.