Active nanostructures from DNA-based self-assembly of nanoparticles

The self-assembly of nanoscale building blocks into complex nanostructures with controlled structural anisotropy can open up new opportunities for realizing active nanomaterials exhibiting spatiotemporal structural transformations. Here, we adopt a combination of bottom-up DNA-directed self-assembly and top-down photothermal patterning to fabricate free-standing nanoparticle films with vertical and lateral heterogeneity. This approach involves the construction of multi-component nanoparticle films by DNA-directed layer-by-layer (LbL) self-assembly, followed by on-demand lateral patterning by the direct photothermal writing method. The photopatterned films exhibit complex morphing actions and locomotion instructed by the lateral and vertical patterns inscribed in the film as well as the information carried in DNA.