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Building plasmonic nanostructures with DNA

Nature Nanotechnology volume 6, pages 268–276 (2011)Cite this article

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Abstract

Plasmonic structures can be constructed from precise numbers of well-defined metal nanoparticles that are held together with molecular linkers, templates or spacers. Such structures could be used to concentrate, guide and switch light on the nanoscale in sensors and various other devices. DNA was first used to rationally design plasmonic structures in 1996, and more sophisticated motifs have since emerged as effective and versatile species for guiding the assembly of plasmonic nanoparticles into structures with useful properties. Here we review the design principles for plasmonic nanostructures, and discuss how DNA has been applied to build finite-number assemblies (plasmonic molecules), regularly spaced nanoparticle chains (plasmonic polymers) and extended two- and three-dimensional ordered arrays (plasmonic crystals).

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Figure 1: A 'periodic table' of plasmonic atoms.
Figure 2: Schematic of plasmonic nanostructures assembled from libraries of plasmonic atoms with various DNA motifs.
Figure 3: Plasmonic nanostructures rationally organized from metallic 'nanoparticle atoms'.

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Acknowledgements

W.L.C. acknowledges financial support from the New Staff Member Research Fund awarded by the Faculty of Engineering, Monash University. S.J.T. is a recipient of the National Science Scholarship awarded by the Agency for Science, Technology and Research, Singapore (A-STAR). M.J.C. is supported by the IGERT Program of the National Science Foundation under Agreement no. DGE-0654112, administered by the Nanobiotechnology Center at Cornell University. D.L. acknowledges financial support from NYSTAR and the NSF CAREER award (grant number: 0547330).

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  1. Department of Biological and Environmental Engineering, Cornell University, Ithaca, 14853, New York, USA

    Shawn J. Tan, Michael J. Campolongo & Dan Luo

  2. Department of Chemical Engineering, Monash University, Clayton, 3150, Victoria, Australia

    Wenlong Cheng

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Tan, S., Campolongo, M., Luo, D. et al. Building plasmonic nanostructures with DNA. Nature Nanotech 6, 268–276 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2011.49

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