A DNA origami-brick system for the fabrication of nanoelectronic elements

• Applicants: Professor Dr. Artur Philipp Nikolaus Erbe; Professor Dr. Ralf Seidel
• Subject Area: Solid State and Surface Chemistry, Material Synthesis ; Biological and Biomimetic Chemistry
• Term: since 2016
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 328415435

Biomolecule-templated synthesis of metallic and semiconducting nanostructures promises a highly parallelized and thus cost-effective fabrication of nanoelectric device components. The advances in DNA nanotechnology provide meanwhile a highly versatile route to produce complex biomolecular templates with programmable shapes, sizes and modifications. To transfer the biomolecular structure into correspondingly shaped inorganic nanostructures, we developed a DNA mold-based construction kit, in which hollow DNA structures can be filled with a material of interest. A library of differently shaped mold elements was established that can be docked to each other in a fully modular manner. This way mold superstructures and thus inorganic nanostructures with complex shapes and different material combinations can be flexibly obtained. In this project, we will further develop this approach to realize more complex structures that represent concrete nanoelectronic device configurations. Specifically, ambipolar transistors based on semiconducting nanorods that include local gates as well as spin valve architectures shall be fabricated. Using a sophisticated combination of our self-assembly approach with top-down lithography, the obtained device architectures will be electrically integrated and characterized and the device operation will be demonstrated. The measurements will be used to understand and optimize the interface properties between the different combinations of metallic, semiconducting and biomolecular material combinations. This way we want to obtain reproducible, self-assembled electronic devices on the nanoscale.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants