NSE/NIRT: Single Molecule Functional Nanostructures

该奖项是响应纳米科学与工程（NSE）招标（NSF-00-119），涉及宾夕法尼亚大学纳米科学跨学科研究团队（NIRT）与广泛的国内和国际合作。它是由材料研究部门的聚合物项目（DMR）、化学部门的特殊项目（CHE）和化学与传输系统部门的界面、传输和热力学过程项目（CTS）共同支持的。将纳米科学与工程（NSE）研究过渡到纳米技术的能力将取决于开发高效的新合成方法来生产单分散纳米级物体。为此，这个纳米级跨学科研究团队（NIRT）的主要目标是实现一个合理的方法来设计和合成复杂的功能单分散物体库，这些物体具有良好定义的形状、尺寸到光的波长、表面和内部分隔的结构。为了实现这一目标，NIRT结合了材料和生命科学的合成方法。NIRT汇集了有机，大分子，超分子和肽合成方面的专业知识，以及理论和建模，以及通过x射线，TEM和SFM进行结构分析。利用与工业界和欧洲合作伙伴建立的联系，扩大了团队的努力。成功将揭示构建单分散自组装树突构建块库所需的原理，从而实现单分散单分子功能纳米结构（SMN）的分层设计，其形状、手性、内外结构和功能控制在目前仅在生物系统中可用的精度水平。NIRT将在单分子水平和2-D和3-D组装中研究这些纳米级物体的结构和性质。阐述了SMNs的新应用，这些应用有可能产生用于电子、光学、化学和医疗技术的纳米级器件。

This award is in response to the Nanoscience and Engineering (NSE) solicitation(NSF-00-119) and involves a nanoscience Interdisciplinary Research Team (NIRT) at the University of Pennsylvania with broad-ranging national and international collaborations. It is being co-supported by the Polymers Program of the Division of Materials Research (DMR), the Special Programs of the Division of Chemistry (CHE), and the Interfacial, Transport and Thermodynamic Processes Program of the Division of Chemical & Transport Systems (CTS).%%%The ability to transition nanoscience and engineering (NSE) research to nanotechnology will depend on the development of efficient new synthetic methods to produce monodisperse nanoscale objects. To this end, the primary goal of this Nanoscale Interdisciplinary research team (NIRT) is to enable a rational approach to the design and synthesis of libraries of complex functional monodisperse objects of well-defined shapes, dimensions up to the wavelength of light, surface, and internal compartmentalized architecture. To accomplish this goal, the NIRT combines synthetic methodologies from Materials and the Life Sciences. The NIRT has assembled expertise in organic, macromolecular, supramolecular, and peptide synthesis, along with theory and modeling, and structural analysis by x-rays, TEM, and SFM. The team effort is amplified by exploiting established links with partners in industry and in Europe. Success will reveal the principles required for the construction of libraries of monodisperse self-assembling dendritic building blocks, to enable the hierarchical design of monodisperse single molecule functional nanostructures (SMN) with shape, chirality, internal and external structure, and function controlled at the level of precision currently available only in biological systems. The NIRT will investigate the structure and properties of these nanoscale objects at the level of the single molecule and in 2-D and 3-D assemblies. Novel applications of SMNs are elaborated that have potential to yield nanoscale devices for electronic, optical, chemical and medical technologies.