Caltech scientists create DNA tubes with programmable sizes for nanoscale man... (hical abstraction system developed earli...)

Caltech scientists create DNA tubes with programmable sizes for nanoscale manufacturing

Date:8/29/2008

hical abstraction system developed earlier this year in the laboratory of Niles Pierce, associate professor_of applied and computational mathematics and bioengineering at Caltech.

Just as a variety of wood sizes are used in construction projects--two by four inches for framing walls, two by eight inches for roof rafters, or four by four inches for fence posts--having nanotubes of various, precisely controlled sizes provides their user with more options. In addition, nanotubes of different sizes have varying mechanical properties; for example, tubes with a smaller diameter are more flexible and tubes with a larger diameter are more rigid. The nanotubes might eventually serve as templates for manufacturing nanowires with controlled diameters; the diameters of electron-conducting nanowires would help determine the electronic properties of the devices they are used to construct.

"The simplicity of the single-stranded tile approach promises to enable us to design ever more complex self-assembling molecular systems. The work is simultaneously elegant and useful," says Erik Winfree, associate professor of computer science, computation and neural systems, and bioengineering at Caltech. Winfree's laboratory was the primary host of Yin's research at Caltech.

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Contact: Kathy Svitil
ksvitil@caltech.edu
626-395-8022
California Institute of Technology
Source:Eurekalert

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Caltech scientists create DNA tubes with programmable sizes for nanoscale man...(hical abstraction system developed earli...)