Dictation of the shape of mesoscale semiconductor nanoparticle assemblies by plasmid DNA

Abstract

We have developed a method of semiconductor nanostructure fabrication relying on the size and shape of a polynucleotide to dictate the overall structure of an assembly of individual nanoparticles. This is exemplified by our use of the 3455-basepair circular plasmid DNA molecule pUCLeu4 which, when anchored to a suitably derivatized substrate, yields an array of semiconductor nanoparticles matching the shape of the biopolymer stabilizer. The viability of the methodology was confirmed using data from high resolution transmission electron microscopy, selected area electron diffraction, and linear optical absorption spectroscopy. This is a unique demonstration of the self-assembly of mesoscale semiconductor nanostructures using biological macromolecules as templates.