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Control of nanomaterial dimensions with atomic precision through synthetic methods is essential to understanding and engineering of nanomaterials. For single-layer inorganic materials, size and shape controls have been achieved by self-assembly and surface-catalyzed reactions of building blocks deposited at a surface. However, the scope of nanostructures accessible by such approach is restricted by the limited choice of building blocks that can be thermally evaporated onto surfaces, such as atoms or thermostable molecules. Herein this limitation is bypassed by using mass-selected molecular ions obtained via electrospray ionization as building blocks to synthesize nanostructures that are inaccessible by conventional evaporation methods. As the first example, micron-scale production of MoS
Zhang et al. (Tue,) studied this question.