Engineering Nano-Building Block Toolboxes for Programmable Self-Assembly of Nanostructures with Arbitary Shapes and Functions

该补助金为研究提供资金，从而能够开发实用，可控和可重复的方法，用于建模和实现自组装纳米结构，并将结构与纳米组装的功能相结合。第一个目标是开发一个纳米积木工具箱，称为“纳米积木”，用于具有任意形状和任意功能的纳米结构的可编程自组装。这是使用水相配体置换技术来控制DNA的数量、位置和方向来实现的，DNA在各种纳米颗粒上进行组装。第二个目标是开发实用的方法来设计组件使用的积木，并将功能响应到设计过程中。第三，为了证明我们的方法的可控性和可扩展性，所得到的纳米复合材料将用于构建不同尺寸和形状的多峰和多功能3D混合纳米复合材料，在几个波长段上具有增强的光学响应，使我们能够获得更全面的，使用多种成像和治疗方式获得准确可靠的信息。这项研究有可能将纳米级设计转化为将结构转化为可观察的宏观功能和材料特性。因此，这项研究使纳米技术更接近于自下而上制造具有新的增强性能和功能的可编程材料和器件的目标。此外，它还提供了功能，可靠和可扩展的技术，用于制造更复杂和受控的多功能纳米结构，这些纳米结构包含用于特定应用的各种纳米组分。如果成功，这项研究的结果有可能提供标准化的设计和实验室程序的“第二代”多功能建筑在所有规模和所有三个维度。因此，这项研究具有很高的潜力，可以改变许多研究领域，包括生物学，化学，物理学，医学和材料科学与工程。例如，具有更好的等离子体响应和多模态特性的纳米结构可能会影响生物学和医学、治疗学和光伏器件中的传感应用。

This grant provides funding for research enabling the development of practical, controllable, and repeatable methods for both modeling and implementing self-assembled nanostructures, and to couple structure to the function of the nanoassembly. The first goal is to develop a nano-building block toolbox termed 'Nano-Toolbox' for the programmable self-assembly of nanostructures with arbitrary shapes and arbitrary functions. This is to be accomplished using an aqueous-phase ligand replacement technique to control the number, placement, and orientation of the DNA, which does the assembly, on various nanoparticles. The second goal is to develop practical methods to design assemblies using the building blocks, and to incorporate functional response into the design process. Third, to demonstrate the controllability and scalability of our approach, the resulting Nano-Toolbox will be used to construct multimodal and multifunctional 3D hybrid nanocomposites in different sizes and shapes with enhanced optical response over several wavelength bands, allowing us to acquire more comprehensive, accurate and reliable information using multiple imaging and therapeutic modalities.This research has the potential to translate a nanoscale design for a structure into observable, macroscopic functions and material properties. Thus, the research advances nanotechnology closer to the goal of bottom-up manufacture of programmable materials and devices with new, enhanced properties and functionality. In addition, it provides the capability for functional, reliable, and scalable techniques for manufacturing more complicated and controlled multifunctional nanostructures that incorporate diverse nanocomponents for specific applications. If successful, the results of this research have the potential to provide standardized design and laboratory procedures for 'second-generation' multifunctional architectures at all scales and in all three dimensions. Thus, this research has high potential to transform many fields of research, including biology, chemistry, physics, medicine, and materials science and engineering. For example, nanostructures with better plasmonic response and multimodal characteristics might impact sensing applications in biology and medicine, therapeutics, and photovoltaic devices.