Scientists create DNA-based nanoscale 3D conductors

An international team of scientists, consisting of American and Israeli scientists, for the first time managed to obtain a superconducting material in a three-dimensional structure. At the same time, self-assembling DNA molecules were used as the basis for the product.

How did you create 3D nanomaterial

Engineers from Brookhwaven Laboratory (USA), Columbia University (USA) and Bar-Ilan University (Israel) managed to develop the basis for the formation of bulk superconducting nanoarchitectures, which turned out to be based on the self-assembly of DNA molecules with a fixed configuration.

Thanks to structural programmability, DNA is able to provide a platform for assembling and creating previously designed structures, according to the Brookhwaven Lab.

But there is one significant drawback, namely the fragility of DNA, which does not allow it to be used for construction from inorganic materials.

In a new scientific work, scientists have demonstrated that they are able to take as a basis the DNA scaffold to form three-dimensional structures that can subsequently be fully transformed into inorganic materials, for example, superconductors.

In order to strengthen the DNA scaffold, the engineers decided to coat it with silicon dioxide. After that, the resulting structure was examined using an electron microscope (NSLS-II) and made sure that the resulting structure exactly corresponds to the previously specified parameters.

So, the coating of DNA with silicon dioxide has formed a mechanically stable structure for scientists, which is ideal for the application of inorganic materials.

After that, the DNA lattices transformed in this way were redirected to the Bar-Ilan Institute, where they applied a low-temperature superconductor niobium by evaporation.

At the same time, the whole process was subjected to careful control so that the niobium layer covered the entire frame evenly and in no case penetrated the workpiece through and through, so that there was no short circuit.

In fact, this technology DNA Origami is not new and has existed for about 15 years, but until now no one has applied a superconductor in this way.

What is it for

The authors of the study expect that the resulting structures will be used in signal amplifiers that can increase both the speed and accuracy of quantum computers. In addition, they can be used in particularly sensitive magnetic field sensors in both medical and geological exploration devices.

The scientists shared the results of their work on the pages of the journal Nature Communication.

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