Jonathan D. Halverson, Alexei V. Tkachenko
We study the problem of the self-assembly of nanoparticles (NPs) into finite mesoscopic structures with a programmed local morphology and complex overall shape. Our proposal is to use NPs directionally-functionalized with DNA (dfNP), as building blocks. The combination of directionality and selectivity of interactions allows one to avoid any unwanted metastable configurations that would commonly lead to slow self-assembly kinetics even in much simpler systems. With numerical simulations, we show that a variety of target mesoscopic objects can be designed and self-assembled in near perfect yield. They include cubes, pyramids, boxes and even an Empire State Building model. We quantitatively describe the observed kinetics with a simple model, and put forward a compact set of design principles for dfNP-based mesostructures.
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http://arxiv.org/abs/1301.1098
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