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Reconfigurable 3D plasmonic metamolecules

Nature Materials volume 13, pages 862–866 (2014)Cite this article

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Abstract

A reconfigurable plasmonic nanosystem combines an active plasmonic structure with a regulated physical or chemical control input. There have been considerable efforts on integration of plasmonic nanostructures with active platforms using top-down techniques. The active media include phase-transition materials, graphene, liquid crystals and carrier-modulated semiconductors, which can respond to thermal1, electrical2 and optical stimuli3,4,5. However, these plasmonic nanostructures are often restricted to two-dimensional substrates, showing desired optical response only along specific excitation directions. Alternatively, bottom-up techniques offer a new pathway to impart reconfigurability and functionality to passive systems. In particular, DNA has proven to be one of the most versatile and robust building blocks6,7,8,9 for construction of complex three-dimensional architectures with high fidelity10,11,12,13,14. Here we show the creation of reconfigurable three-dimensional plasmonic metamolecules, which execute DNA-regulated conformational changes at the nanoscale. DNA serves as both a construction material to organize plasmonic nanoparticles in three dimensions, as well as fuel for driving the metamolecules to distinct conformational states. Simultaneously, the three-dimensional plasmonic metamolecules can work as optical reporters, which transduce their conformational changes in situ into circular dichroism changes in the visible wavelength range.

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Figure 1: Reconfigurable 3D plasmonic metamolecules.
Figure 2: TEM images of the plasmonic metamolecules in the right-handed state.
Figure 3: Cycling the 3D plasmonic metamolecules between two states.
Figure 4: Cycling the 3D plasmonic metamolecules between three states.

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Acknowledgements

We thank A. Jeltsch and R. Jurkowska for assistance with CD spectrometry. We thank M. Kelsch and H. Ries for assistance with TEM microscopy and DNA scaffold preparation, respectively. We acknowledge S. Hein for material visualizations and F. Simmel for advice, respectively. TEM data were collected at the Stuttgart Center for Electron Microscopy (StEM). N.L. was supported by the Sofja Kovalevskaja Award from the Alexander von Humboldt-Foundation. A.K. was supported by a postdoctoral fellowship from the Alexander von Humboldt-Foundation. A.K. and N.L. were supported by a Marie Curie CIG Fellowship and the Grassroots Proposal M10330 from the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems. T.L. and R.S. were supported by the Volkswagen Foundation and the DFG cluster of excellence NIM. H.Z. and A.O.G. were supported by the US Army Research Office under grant number W911NF-12-1-0407 and by Volkswagen Foundation (Germany). Use of the Computing Cluster at the Center for Nanoscale Materials was supported by the US Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, under Contract No. DE-AC02-06CH11357.

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  1. Robert Schreiber

    Present address: Present address: Clarendon Laboratory, Department of Physics, University of Oxford, Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3PU, UK.,

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, Heisenbergstrasse 3, D-70569 Stuttgart, Germany

    Anton Kuzyk & Na Liu

  2. Fakultät für Physik and Center for Nanoscience, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Geschwister-Scholl-Platz 1, 80539 München, Germany

    Robert Schreiber & Tim Liedl

  3. Department of Physics and Astronomy, Ohio University, Athens, Ohio 45701, USA

    Hui Zhang & Alexander O. Govorov

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  1. Anton Kuzyk
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Contributions

A.K., T.L. and N.L. conceived the experiments. A.K. and R.S. designed the DNA origami nanostructures. A.K. performed the experiments. H.Z. and A.O.G. carried out the theoretical calculations. A.K. and N.L. wrote the manuscript. All authors discussed the results, analysed the data and commented on the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Anton Kuzyk or Na Liu.

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Kuzyk, A., Schreiber, R., Zhang, H. et al. Reconfigurable 3D plasmonic metamolecules. Nature Mater 13, 862–866 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat4031

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