(August 4, 2015) A
team of New York University scientists has developed a technique that prompts
microparticles to form ordered structures in a variety of materials. The
advance, which appears in the Journal of the American Chemical Society (JACS)
as an “Editors’ Choice” article, offers a method to potentially improve the
makeup and color of optical materials used in computer screens along with other
consumer products.
The work is centered on enhancing the arrangement of
colloids—small particles suspended within a fluid medium. Colloidal dispersions
are composed of such everyday items such as paint, milk, gelatin, glass, and
porcelain, but their potential to create new materials remains largely
untapped.
Notably, DNA-coated colloids offer particular promise
because they can be linked together, with DNA serving as the glue to form a
range of new colloidal structures. However, previous attempts have produced
uneven results, with these particles attaching to each other in ways that
produce chaotic or inflexible configurations.
The NYU team developed a new method to apply DNA coating to
colloids so that they crystallize—or form new compounds—in an orderly manner.
Specifically, it employed a synthetic strategy—click chemistry—introduced more
than a decade ago that is a highly efficient way of attaching DNA. Here,
scientists initiated a chemical reaction that allows molecular components to
stick together in a particular fashion—a process some have compared to
connecting Legos.
In a previous paper, published earlier this year in the
journal Nature Communications, the research team outlined the successful
execution of this technique. However, the method, at that point, could
manipulate only one type of particle. In the JACS study, the research team
shows the procedure can handle five additional types of materials—and in
different combinations.