Origins and Limitations
The term "replicator" originated on Star Trek: The Next Generation, portrayed as a 24th century advancement from the 23rd century "food synthesizer" seen in Star Trek: The Original Series. The mechanics of these devices were never clearly explained on that show, but the subsequent prequel series, Star Trek: Enterprise, featured a 22nd century version referred to as a "protein resequencer." Additionally, that ship had a "bio-matter resequencer" which was used to recycle waste product into usable material.
A replicator can create any inanimate matter, as long as the desired molecular structure is on file, but it cannot create antimatter, dilithium, latinum, or a living organism of any kind; in the case of living organisms, non-canon works such as the Star Trek: the Next Generation Technical Manual state that, though the replicators use a form of transporter technology, it's at such a low resolution that creating living tissue is a physical impossibility.
In its theory it seems to work similarly to a universal assembler.
Read more about this topic: Replicator (Star Trek)
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