Hierarchical assembly of Planet-satellites structure

01.12.2013

Our work on the "Hierarchical assembly of metal nanoparticles, quantum dots and organic dyes using DNA origami scaffolds" has been published in Nature Nanotechnology. In this work, we show that rigid DNA origami scaffolds can be used to assemble metal nanoparticles, quantum dots and organic dyes into hierarchical nanoclusters that have a planet–satellite-type structure. The nanoclusters have a tunable stoichiometry, defined distances of 5–200 nm between components, and controllable overall sizes of up to 500 nm. We also show that the nanoscale components can be positioned along the radial DNA spacers of the nanostructures, which allows short- and long-range interactions between nanoparticles and dyes to be studied in solution.