Researchers at the University of Toronto have produced advanced nanomaterials that are capable of managing and directing the energy trapped from light and their results are recorded in an upcoming issue of Nature Nanotechnology.
The researchers have created what they called as artificial molecules. The team, under the supervision of Professors Ted Sargent and Shana Kelley, invented a general technique to join specific classes of nanoparticles to each other by combining their proficiency in semiconductors and DNA. According to Kelley, this discovery enables building of higher-order complexes or structures from several diverse types of quantum dots.
Sargent explained that the credit for this discovery is attributed to the high degree of specificity exclusive to DNA, which binds only with a particular complimentary sequence allowing them to develop designer structures from nanomaterials. He added that they coated various classes of nanoparticles with chosen sequences of DNA, blended the various families in a single beaker that led to the development of a new collection of self-assembled nanoantennas with amazing properties.
Conventional antennas augment the intensity of an electromagnetic wave such as a radio frequency and direct that power to a circuit. The U of T nanoantennas enhanced the absorption of light and directed it to a single location placed within their molecule-like structures.. This concept is very similar to that used in nature by leaves that harvest solar light and perform photosynethesis.
Paul S. Weiss, Fred Kavli Chair of UCLA, stated that this project reveals the capability of assembling specific structures, modifying their properties, and controlling these properties with the help of external stimuli. Kelley explained that manipulation of nanomaterials has no limits and if the artificial atoms are semiconductor quantum dots then synthesis of artificial molecules have been achieved from these quantum dots.
Source: http://www.engineering.utoronto.ca/Page4.aspx