Regensburg 2019 – scientific programme

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CPP: Fachverband Chemische Physik und Polymerphysik

CPP 30: Complex Fluids and Colloids, Micelles and Vesicles (joint session CPP/DY)

CPP 30.4: Talk

Wednesday, April 3, 2019, 10:30–10:45, H14

Electron-Atom duality in DNA-programmable assembly — •Martin Girard¹, Anindita Das^2,4, Shunzhi Wang^2,4, Jingshan Du^3,4, Byeongdu Lee⁵, Chad A. Mirkin^2,4, and Monica Olvera de la Cruz^3,6 — ¹Max Planck Institute for Polymer Physics, Mainz, Germany — ²Department of Chemistry, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA — ³Department of Material Science and Engineering, Northwestern University, IL, USA — ⁴International Institute for Nanotechnology, Evanston, IL, USA — ⁵X-ray Science Division, Advanced Photon Source, Argonne National Laboratory, IL, USA — ⁶Department of Physics and Astronomy, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA

A powerful method for designing colloidal crystals involves the use of DNA as a particle-directing ligand. With such systems, DNA-nanoparticle conjugates are considered programmable atom equivalents (PAEs), and design rules have been devised to engineer complex crystallization outcomes. Here, we report a new property of PAEs, a type of electron-atom duality. When reduced in size and DNA grafting density, PAEs can behave as electron equivalents (EEs) and move through lattices defined by larger PAEs. In such mixtures, the EEs roam through the crystals as electrons do in metals, holding the large PAEs in specific lattice sites. As the number of strands increases or the temperature decreases, the EEs localize yielding a transition from a metal to a compound. This concept of electron-atom-equivalent duality changes the way we think about colloidal systems and helps define new routes to metallic, intermetallic, and compound phases.