Micro- and Nanoscale Component Assembly Using Biomolecular Recognition

纳米技术的许多令人兴奋的应用将需要集成非常小的单独制造的组件，如嵌入式处理器，能量存储/发电单元，传感器和执行器以及通信模块。总的来说，这些可以创建微小，完整的自主纳米系统，可以以分布式方式感知和响应，用于健康，安全，环境，工业或消费者使用中的各种强大应用。然而，一个关键的未满足的需求是组装这些单独组件的能力，即使它们的总尺寸是微米级或更小。在这种规模下，传统的机器人系统是不切实际的，需要自组装。这个建议是一个研究计划，以发展的方法，利用生物分子识别的微米级组件的自组装。分子如互补DNA链或生物素与抗生物素蛋白以高度特异性的方式结合联合收割机，并可作为“智能胶”，使微米级芯片从水溶液自动组装到指定位置。智能胶可以应用于芯片和基板的高分辨率使用标准的纳米纤维技术。我们小组最近的工作已经验证了程序化生物分子附着的概念，但需要做出重大努力来了解该过程的能力，以确定它是否可以作为一种制造模式。具体任务将是调查对工艺参数的敏感性，设计和测试不同的生物分子结构，并开发技术以提高组装的位置和方向精度。这将涉及实验和建模技术。

Many exciting applications of nanotechnology will require the integration of very small, separately fabricated components such as embedded processors, energy storage/generation units, sensors and actuators, and communications modules. Collectively, these can create tiny, complete autonomous nanosystems that can sense and respond in a distributed fashion for diverse and powerful applications in health, security, the environment, industry or consumer use. A key unmet need, however, is the ability to assemble these separate components even when their total size is micron-scale or smaller. At this scale, conventional robotic systems are impractical, and self-assembly is needed. This proposal is for a research program to develop methodologies for the self-assembly of micron-scale components using biomolecular recognition. Molecules such as complementary DNA strands or biotin with avidin combine in a highly specific manner and can act as "smart glue" to cause micron-scale chips to automatically assemble in their assigned locations from an aqueous solution. The smart glue can be applied to chip and substrate with high resolution using standard nanofabrication techniques. Recent work by our group has validated this concept of programmed biomolecular attachment, but significant effort is needed to understand the capabilities of the process to determine whether it can be viable as a manufacturing paradigm. Specific tasks will be to investigate sensitivities to process parameters, design and test different biomolecular structures, and develop techniques to improve position and orientation accuracy of assembly. This will involve both experimental and modeling techniques.