If you ever played with those plastic toy kits as a kid, you may wanna see this. We prefabricated nanoscale needles, to be picked up by nanogrippers inside a scanning electron microscope. These nanobits are then used as ultralong tips in "Atomic Force Microscopes".

The needles are called "Nanobits" - because they remind us of drill bits; you can have a library of different "nanobits" and then pick the one you want, and mount it where you want it.

This is a part of a project funded by the European Commission, a very cool nanorobot/manufacturing collaboration called "Nanohand". (less info)