Abstract
Single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) are a family of molecules that have the same cylindrical shape but different chiralities1. Many fundamental studies and technological applications2 of SWNTs require a population of tubes with identical chirality that current syntheses cannot provide. The SWNT sorting problem—that is, separation of a synthetic mixture of tubes into individual single-chirality components—has attracted considerable attention in recent years. Intense efforts so far have focused largely on, and resulted in solutions for, a weaker version of the sorting problem: metal/semiconductor separation3,4. A systematic and general method to purify each and every single-chirality species of the same electronic type from the synthetic mixture of SWNTs is highly desirable, but the task has proven to be insurmountable to date. Here we report such a method, which allows purification of all 12 major single-chirality semiconducting species from a synthetic mixture, with sufficient yield for both fundamental studies and application development. We have designed an effective search of a DNA library of ∼1060 in size, and have identified more than 20 short DNA sequences, each of which recognizes and enables chromatographic purification of a particular nanotube species from the synthetic mixture. Recognition sequences exhibit a periodic purine–pyrimidines pattern, which can undergo hydrogen-bonding to form a two-dimensional sheet, and fold selectively on nanotubes into a well-ordered three-dimensional barrel. We propose that the ordered two-dimensional sheet and three-dimensional barrel provide the structural basis for the observed DNA recognition of SWNTs.
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Acknowledgements
This work was supported in part by the US National Science Foundation (grant CMS-060950). We thank T. Devine for technical assistance.
Author Contributions X.T. conducted all the separation experiments and participated in their design with M.Z.; S.M. and A.J. conducted DNA–SWNT structure analysis under direction from A.J.; all authors contributed to the manuscript writing; and M.Z. guided all aspects of the work.
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Tu, X., Manohar, S., Jagota, A. et al. DNA sequence motifs for structure-specific recognition and separation of carbon nanotubes. Nature 460, 250–253 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature08116
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nature08116
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