Abstract
Films of oriented bacteriorhodopsin have been formed in polyvinyl alcohol with excellent optical quality. Images with high contrast have been impressed and erased on these films. Second-harmonic microscopy has been used to read the image on a bacteriorhodopsin-polyvinyl alcohol film without erasure. The potential of these films for molecular information storage and computation is discussed.
Highlights
Molecular information storage and processing have generated considerable interest in the past few years
Previous results have indicated the orientation of the purple membrane in BR-PVA20 and assuming perfect alignment by both methods of orientation, we can predict the ratio of the SH signal generated from samples produced by these two methods
Since the electricfield-orientation isthought to produce highly oriented samples, the fact that v islarger than 1probably results from the signal losses caused by scattering caused by nonuniformity and the generally poor optical quality of the dry BR films oriented by using electric fields. These results indicate that BR is oriented in the BRPVA films to at least the same degree as the dry BR films oriented by electric fields
Summary
Bacteriorhodopsin oriented in polyvinyl alcohol films as an erasable optical storage medium. Films of oriented bacteriorhodopsin have been formed in polyvinyl alcoholwith excellent optical quality. Imageswith high contrast have been impressed and erased on these films. Second-harmonicmicroscopyhas been used to read the image on a bacteriorhodopsin-polyvinylalcoholfilm without erasure. The potential of these films for molecular information storage and computation is discussed
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