Internal Structure of Nanoparticle Dimers Linked by DNA
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- 作者：Cheng Chi ; Fernando Vargas-Lara ; Alexei V. Tkachenko ; Francis W. Starr ; Oleg Gang
- 刊名：ACS Nano
- 出版年：2012
- 出版时间：August 28, 2012
- 年：2012
- 卷：6
- 期：8
- 页码：6793-6802
- 全文大小：623K
- 年卷期：v.6,no.8(August 28, 2012)
- ISSN：1936-086X
文摘
We construct nanoparticle dimers linked by DNA. These dimers are basic units in a possible multiscale, hierarchical assembly and serve as a model system to understand DNA-mediated interactions, especially in the nontrivial regime when the nanoparticle and DNA are comparable in their sizes. We examine the structure of nanoparticle dimers in detail by a combination of scattering experiments and molecular simulations. We find that, for a given DNA length, the interparticle separation within the dimer is controlled primarily by the number of linking DNA. We summarize our findings in a simple model that captures the interplay of the number of DNA bridges, their length, the particle鈥檚 curvature, and the excluded volume effects. We demonstrate the applicability of the model to our results, without any free parameters. As a consequence, the increase of dimer separation with increasing temperature can be understood as a result of changing the number of connecting DNA.