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Putting to work a molecule able to collect and carry adatoms in a controlled way on a surface is a solution for fabricating atomic structures atom by atom. Investigations have shown that the interaction of an organic molecule with the surface of a metal can induce surface reconstruction down to the atomic scale^,,,,. In this way, well-defined nanostructures such as chains of adatoms, atomic trenches^, and metal–ligand compounds have been formed. Moreover, the progress in manipulation techniques^,,,, induced by a scanning tunnelling microscope (STM) has opened up the possibility of studying artificially built molecular-metal atomic scale structures^,, and allowed the atom-by-atom doping of a single C₆₀ molecule by picking up K atoms. The present work goes a step further and combines STM manipulation techniques with the ability of a molecule to assemble an atomic nanostructure. We present a well-designed six-leg …