Forging a New Periodic Table Using Nanostructures
Researchers in nanotechnology and its application have developed a
completely new set of building blocks. These blocks are based on
nanoparticles and DNA. They can use these new tools to build structures in
the same way nature does. These new structures can be built from the
particle level. Instead of taking what nature gives us, researchers can build
new and useful structures. They will be able to control every property of the
new material. People have always had a vision of building a new material
from the particle level. They have wanted to shape matter from the most
basic beginnings and control its architecture as it grows upwards.
Researchers have shown this can be done.
Using nanoparticles and DNA researchers built more than 200
different crystal structures with 17 different particle arrangements. Some of
the lattice types can be found in nature, but many were new structures that
have no naturally occurring mineral counterpart. Researchers can make new
materials and arrangements of particles by controlling the size, shape, type
and location of nanoparticles within a given particle lattice. They have
developed a set of design rules that allow them to control almost every
property of a material.
New materials developed using his method could help improve the
efficiency of optics, electronics and energy storage technologies. These same
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nanoparticle building blocks have already found wide-spread commercial
applications in biology and medicine as diagnostic probes for markers of
disease.
The present advances in nanoparticles allow researchers to build
structures in a new way. Now, researchers start with a nanoparticle, which
could be gold, silver, platinum or a quantum dot, for example. The core
material is selected depending on what physical properties the final
structure should have. They then attach hundreds of strands of DNA
(oligonucleotides) to the particle. These small bits of nucleic acids can be
manufactured with any user-specified sequence. The DNA sequence and length
determine how bonds form between nanoparticles. The DNA guide the
formation of specific crystal lattices.
This constitutes a completely new class of building blocks in
materials science that gives researchers a type of programmability that is
extraordinarily versatile and powerful. The process gives nanotechnologists
for the first time the ability to tailor properties of materials in a highly
programmable way from the bottom up.
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