Bottom-up approaches

These seek to arrange smaller components into more complex assemblies.

•  DNA nanotechnology utilizes the specificity of Watson–Crick basepairing to construct well-defined structures out of DNA and other nucleic acids.

•    Approaches from the field of "classical" chemical synthesis (inorganic and organic synthesis) also aim at designing molecules with well-defined shape .

•   More generally, molecular self-assembly seeks to use concepts of supramolecular chemistry, and molecular recognition in particular, to cause single-molecule components to automatically arrange themselves into some useful conformation.

•  Atomic force microscope tips can be used as a nanoscale "write head" to deposit a chemical upon a surface in a desired pattern in a process called dip pen nanolithography. This technique fits into the larger subfield of nanolithography.