The research objective of this project is to study fundamental interactions between graphene and self-assembling DNA towards a new manufacturing platform that can create custom-designed graphene nanostructures. DNA origami (paper-folding) structures of arbitrarily designed sizes and shapes will be hierarchically assembled and will be explored as templates/masks to define graphene nano-geometry using top-down fabrication methods. This research will investigate DNA assembly kinetics and non-covalent chemistry at the DNA-graphene interface. The effects of edge chemistry and graphene geometry on the electro-optical properties of resulting nanostructures will be assessed. Theoretical modeling and numerical computation will be performed to guide experiment.
The outcome of this research will generate new scalable nanofabrication strategies for custom-designed graphene and other electronic materials, which cannot be manufactured otherwise in a high-throughput, massively parallel fashion. The bottom-up approach will demonstrate unprecedented sub-10-nm features of arbitrary geometries, while exploiting the repeatability and scalability of conventional top-down methods. This program will integrate the research efforts with educational and outreach activities designed to advance the public understanding of biomolecular nanomanufacturing. These activities will provide opportunities for graduate and undergraduate students to learn and conduct cutting-edge science and engineering in a multidisciplinary environment, and increase participation of women and underrepresented minority students.
