Programming Structure and Transformations of Nanoscale Materials

The diverse emerging nanotechnological applications require the integration of functional nanocomponents into complexly organized architectures. While top-down fabrication methods are limited in creating 3D nanostructures, self-assembly typically does not provide designability for creating targeted architectures. The talk will discuss our advances in establishing a DNA-based platform to program self-assembly of finite-size and large-scale nano-architectures from inorganic and biomolecular nanocomponents. On one side, we explore how intercomponent interactions lead to the specific phases. On the other side, we develop an inverse design strategy for programming and assembly of targeted periodic and hierarchical organizations through specifically designed interactions. We further study efficient and information-compressed encoding of bonds for achieving targeted self-assembly states. Next, these advances are translated to prescribing material transformation pathways at different scales using equilibrium and non-equilibrium processes. The development of advanced characterization methods for revealing the 3D organization of nanoscale materials is also discussed in the context of the presented self-assembly by-design approaches.