Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemistry for Energy Materials, The MOE Key Laboratory of Spectrochemical Analysis and Instrumentation, State Key Laboratory of Physical Chemistry of Solid Surfaces, Key Laboratory of Chemical Biology of Fujian Province, Department of Chemical Biology, College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Xiamen University, Xiamen, 361005, China.
Key Laboratory for the Physics and Chemistry of Nanodevices and Center for Carbon-Based Electronics, School of Electronics, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, China.
Nat Commun. 2022 May 16;13(1):2707. doi: 10.1038/s41467-022-30441-1.
While DNA-directed nano-fabrication enables the high-resolution patterning for conventional electronic materials and devices, the intrinsic self-assembly defects of DNA structures present challenges for further scaling into sub-1 nm technology nodes. The high-dimensional crystallographic defects, including line dislocations and grain boundaries, typically lead to the pattern defects of the DNA lattices. Using periodic line arrays as model systems, we discover that the sequence periodicity mainly determines the formation of line defects, and the defect rate reaches 74% at 8.2-nm line pitch. To suppress high-dimensional defects rate, we develop an effective approach by assigning the orthogonal sequence sets into neighboring unit cells, reducing line defect rate by two orders of magnitude at 7.5-nm line pitch. We further demonstrate densely aligned metal nano-line arrays by depositing metal layers onto the assembled DNA templates. The ultra-scaled critical pitches in the defect-free DNA arrays may further promote the dimension-dependent properties of DNA-templated materials.
虽然 DNA 导向的纳米制造能够实现传统电子材料和器件的高分辨率图案化，但 DNA 结构的固有自组装缺陷为进一步缩小到亚 1nm 技术节点带来了挑战。高维晶体学缺陷，包括位错和晶界，通常会导致 DNA 晶格的图案缺陷。使用周期性线阵列作为模型系统，我们发现序列周期性主要决定了线缺陷的形成，在线距为 8.2nm 时，缺陷率达到 74%。为了抑制高维缺陷率，我们通过将正交序列集分配到相邻的单元中，开发了一种有效的方法，在线距为 7.5nm 时，将线缺陷率降低了两个数量级。我们进一步通过在组装的 DNA 模板上沉积金属层来展示密集排列的金属纳米线阵列。无缺陷 DNA 阵列中超尺度的临界间距可能会进一步促进 DNA 模板材料的尺寸相关性能。
