Abstract
DNA nanostructures are promising construction materials to bridge the gap between self-assembly of functional molecules and conventional top-down fabrication methods in nanotechnology. Their positioning onto specific locations of a microstructured substrate is an important task towards this aim. Here we study manipulation and positioning of pristine and of gold nanoparticle-conjugated tubular DNA origami structures using ac dielectrophoresis. The dielectrophoretic behavior was investigated employing fluorescence microscopy. For the pristine origami, a significant dielectrophoretic response was found to take place in the megahertz range, whereas, due to the higher polarizability of the metallic nanoparticles, the nanoparticle/DNA hybrid structures required a lower electrical field strength and frequency for a comparable trapping at the edges of the electrode structure. The nanoparticle conjugation additionally resulted in a remarkable alteration of the DNA structure arrangement. The growth of linear, chain-like structures in between electrodes at applied frequencies in the megahertz range was observed. The long-range chain formation is caused by a local, gold nanoparticle-induced field concentration along the DNA nanostructures, which in turn, creates dielectrophoretic forces that enable the observed self-alignment of the hybrid structures.
Highlights
The DNA origami method facilitates high throughput synthesis of identical and fully addressable two- (2D) or three-dimensional (3D) nanoscaled structures [1,2,3]
Recent studies address the alignment of DNA nanostructures to pre-structured surfaces that include (i) notches with the shape and dimension corresponding to the DNA origami structure [12,13], or (ii) gold islands to align DNA nanostructures between two conducting pads [14]
The final concentration of Mg2+ ions was approximately 1.5 mM, which we found was sufficient to prevent the disassembly of the DNA origami structure
Summary
The DNA origami method facilitates high throughput synthesis of identical and fully addressable two- (2D) or three-dimensional (3D) nanoscaled structures [1,2,3]. It has been shown that DNA origami structures can be dielectrophoretically trapped along an electrode structure using frequencies starting from 1 MHz at an electrical field strength of about 1·107 V/m [2830]. A further increment of the voltage resulted in a higher density of trapped DNA origami structures around the rim of the tip electrode.
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