DNA double helix does double duty in assembling arrays of nanoparticles

In a new twist on the use of DNA in nanoscale construction, scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory and collaborators put synthetic strands of the biological material to work in two ways: They used ropelike configurations of the DNA double helix to form a rigid geometrical framework, and added dangling pieces...

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Engineering phase changes in nanoparticle arrays

Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory have just taken a big step toward the goal of engineering dynamic nanomaterials whose structure and associated properties can be switched on demand. In a paper appearing in ("Selective transformations between nanoparticle superlattices via the reprogramming of DNA-mediated...

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Table-top extreme UV laser system heralds imaging at the nanoscale

Researchers at Swinburne University of Technology have discovered a new way to generate bright beams of coherent extreme UV radiation using a table-top setup that could be used to produce high resolution images of tiny structures at the nanoscale. “The ability to image nano-scale features with a conventional optical microscope is limited by the wavelength...

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