Creating metamaterial building blocks with directed photochemical metallization of silver onto DNA origami templates

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2018-06-27
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Hossen, Md Mir
Bendickson, Lee
Palo, Pierre
Yao, Zhiqi
Nilsen-Hamilton, Marit
Hillier, Andrew
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Nilsen-Hamilton, Marit
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Ames National LaboratoryChemical and Biological EngineeringBiochemistry, Biophysics and Molecular Biology, Roy J. Carver Department of
Abstract

DNA origami can be used to create a variety of complex and geometrically unique nanostructures that can be further modified to produce building blocks for applications such as in optical metamaterials. We describe a method for creating metal-coated nanostructures using DNA origami templates and a photochemical metallization technique. Triangular DNA origami forms were fabricated and coated with a thin metal layer by photochemical silver reduction while in solution or supported on a surface. The DNA origami template serves as a localized photosensitizer to facilitate reduction of silver ions directly from solution onto the DNA surface. The metallizing process is shown to result in a conformal metal coating, which grows in height to a self-limiting value with increasing photoreduction steps. Although this coating process results in a slight decrease in the triangle dimensions, the overall template shape is retained. Notably, this coating method exhibits characteristics of self-limiting and defect-filling growth, which results in a metal nanostructure that maps the shape of the original DNA template with a continuous and uniform metal layer and stops growing once all available DNA sites are exhausted.

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