Several groups have applied atomic manipulation techniques for artistic purposes to demonstrate control over the adatom positions. These include various institutional logos and a movie called “A Boy and His Atom” composed of individual STM scans by IBM researchers.
Several notable condensed matter physics experiments have been realized with atomic manipulation techniques. These include the demonstration of electron confinement in so-called quantum corrals by Michael F. Crommie et al., and the subsequent Quantum mirage experiment, where the Kondo signature of an adatom was reflected from one focus to another in an elliptical quantum corral.
Atomic manipulation has also sparked interest as a computation platform. Andreas J. Heinrich et al. built logic gates out of molecular cascades of CO adsorbates, and Kalff et al. demonstrated a rewritable kilobyte memory made of individual atoms.
Recent experiments on artificial lattice structures have utilized atomic manipulation techniques to study the electronic properties of Lieb lattices, artificial graphene and Sierpiński triangles.