researchers from the nanoscience center at the university of jyväskylä and biomeditech at the university of tampere, funded by the academy of finland, have developed a new pathway towards single-electron electronics that can be used at room temperature by using dna.
(academy of finland)
the scientists used dna as “a scaffold” to build a linear nanostructure from three gold nanoparticles. electrons are added to nanoscale pieces of metal through quantum tunneling, a process in which electrons break through an energy barrier. in this study, scientists discovered that the electrons tunneled from the voltage source through the nanoparticles one-by-one.
the abstract of the report that was published in nano letters read:
“dna based structures offer an adaptable and robust way to develop customized nanostructures for various purposes in bionanotechnology. one main aim in this field is to develop a dna nanobreadboard for a controllable attachment of nanoparticles or biomolecules to form specific nanoelectronic devices.
“here we conjugate three gold nanoparticles on a defined size tx-tile assembly into a linear pattern to form nanometer scale isolated islands that could be utilized in a room temperature single electron transistor. to demonstrate this, conjugated structures were trapped using dielectrophoresis for current–voltage characterization.
“after trapping only high resistance behavior was observed. however, after extending the islands by chemical growth of gold, several structures exhibited coulomb blockade behavior from 4.2 k up to room temperature, which gives a good indication that self-assembled dna structures could be used for nanoelectronic patterning and single electron devices.”
the results of the study indicate that countless structures can be designed using dna self-assembly and that this method can be used to create single-electron devices at room temperature, which is a significant step forward for technology that has been studied for several decades.
to read the full report, click http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.nanolett.6b02378. to read an article based on the findings, visit http://www.aka.fi/en/about-us/media/press-releases/2016/researchers-develop-dna-based-single-electron-electronic-devices.
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