title: Assembly kinetics of nanocrystals via peptide hybridization.
abstract: The assembly kinetics of colloidal semiconductor quantum dots (QDs) on solid inorganic surfaces is of fundamental importance for implementation of their solid-state devices. Herein an inorganic binding peptide, silica binding QBP1, was utilized for the self-assembly of nanocrystal quantum dots on silica surface as a smart molecular linker. The QD binding kinetics was studied comparatively in three different cases: first, QD adsorption with no functionalization of substrate or QD surface; second, QD adsorption on QBP1-modified surface; and, finally, adsorption of QBP1-functionalized QD on silica surface. The surface modification of QDs with QBP1 enabled 79.3-fold enhancement in QD binding affinity, while modification of a silica surface with QBP1 led to only 3.3-fold enhancement. The fluorescence microscopy images also supported a coherent assembly with correspondingly increased binding affinity. Decoration of QDs with inorganic peptides was shown to increase the amount of surface-bound QDs dramatically compared to the conventional methods. These results offer new opportunities for the assembly of QDs on solid surfaces for future device applications.
authors.affiliation: Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Department of Physics and UNAM-Institute of Materials Science and Nanotechnology, Bilkent University, 06800 Ankara, Turkey. uosseker@ntu.edu.sg
authors.forename: Urartu Ozgur Safak
authors.initials: UO
authors.lastname: Seker
authors.forename: Gulis
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Zengin
authors.forename: Candan
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Tamerler
authors.forename: Mehmet
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Sarikaya
authors.forename: Hilmi Volkan
authors.initials: HV
authors.lastname: Demir
mesh_terms: D000327:Adsorption; D007700:Kinetics; D008856:Microscopy, Fluorescence; D053758:Nanoparticles / Q000737:chemistry*; D010455:Peptides / Q000737:chemistry*; D045663:Quantum Dots; D012822:Silicon Dioxide
chemical_list: D010455:Peptides; D012822:Silicon Dioxide