Iowa State, Ames Lab physicist says nanoparticle assembly is like building with LEGOs

10-13-11

This image shows a crystal of nanoparticles (the red and blue spheres) held together by DNA strands (the orange lines) via the hybridization of complementary sequences (the blue and red rings). Larger image (available at the link). Image courtesy of Chris Knorowski.

Contacts:

Alex Travesset, Physics and Astronomy, Ames Laboratory, 515-294-7191, trvsst@ameslab.gov

Mike Krapfl, News Service, 515-294-4917, mkrapfl@iastate.edu

Iowa State, Ames Lab physicist says nanoparticle assembly is like building with LEGOs

AMES, Iowa - New processes that allow nanoparticles to assemble themselves into designer materials could solve some of today's technology challenges, Alex Travesset of Iowa State University and the Ames Laboratory reports in the Oct. 14 issue of the journal http://www.sciencemag.org/">Science.

…

"Nanoparticle self-assembly has entered the LEGO era," Travesset said. "You can really work with nanoparticles in the same way you can work with LEGOs. This represents a breakthrough in the way we can manipulate matter. Really revolutionary applications will come."

In his commentary, Travesset reports on the ramifications of a scientific paper also published in the Oct. 14 issue of Science. Lead authors of the scientific paper are Chad Mirkin, director of the International Institute for Nanotechnology at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., and George Schatz, a professor of chemistry at Northwestern. Their research team describes new technologies that use complementary DNA strands to link nanoparticles and control how the particles precisely assemble into target structures.

…

The developments by the Mirkin and Schatz research team are "likely to elevate DNA-programmed self-assembly into a technique for the design of nanoparticle structures a la carte," Travesset wrote.

…