title: Casting inorganic structures with DNA molds.
abstract: We report a general strategy for designing and synthesizing inorganic nanostructures with arbitrarily prescribed three-dimensional shapes. Computationally designed DNA strands self-assemble into a stiff "nanomold" that contains a user-specified three-dimensional cavity and encloses a nucleating gold "seed." Under mild conditions, this seed grows into a larger cast structure that fills and thus replicates the cavity. We synthesized a variety of nanoparticles with 3-nanometer resolution: three distinct silver cuboids with three independently tunable dimensions, silver and gold nanoparticles with diverse cross sections, and composite structures with homo- and heterogeneous components. The designer equilateral silver triangular and spherical nanoparticles exhibited plasmonic properties consistent with electromagnetism-based simulations. Our framework is generalizable to more complex geometries and diverse inorganic materials, offering a range of applications in biosensing, photonics, and nanoelectronics.
authors.affiliation: Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, Harvard University, Boston, MA 02115, USA. Department of Systems Biology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA.
authors.forename: Wei
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Sun
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
authors.forename: Etienne
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Boulais
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
authors.forename: Yera
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Hakobyan
authors.affiliation: Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, Harvard University, Boston, MA 02115, USA. Department of Systems Biology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA.
authors.forename: Wei Li
authors.initials: WL
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, Harvard University, Boston, MA 02115, USA.
authors.forename: Amy
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Guan
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA. py@hms.harvard.edu mark.bathe@mit.edu.
authors.forename: Mark
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Bathe
authors.affiliation: Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, Harvard University, Boston, MA 02115, USA. Department of Systems Biology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA. py@hms.harvard.edu mark.bathe@mit.edu.
authors.forename: Peng
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Yin
mesh_terms: D003461:Crystallography; D004247:DNA / Q000737:chemistry*; D006046:Gold / Q000737:chemistry*; D053768:Metal Nanoparticles / Q000737:chemistry*; D008968:Molecular Conformation; D036103:Nanotechnology / Q000379:methods*; D012834:Silver / Q000737:chemistry*
chemical_list: D012834:Silver; D006046:Gold; D004247:DNA