Dynamics of DNA-Templated Ultrafine Silver Nanowires Formation

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Ma, Qifei, Chinappi, Mauro, Douaki, Ali, Zou, Yanqiu, Jin, Huaizhou, Descrovi, Emiliano, Krahne, Roman, Zaccaria, Remo Proietti, Cojoc, Dan, Kolataj, Karol, Acuna, Guillermo, Jin, Shangzhong, Garoli, Denis
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Ma, Qifei
Chinappi, Mauro
Douaki, Ali
Zou, Yanqiu
Jin, Huaizhou
Descrovi, Emiliano
Krahne, Roman
Zaccaria, Remo Proietti
Cojoc, Dan
Kolataj, Karol
Acuna, Guillermo
Jin, Shangzhong
Garoli, Denis
author_facet Ma, Qifei
Chinappi, Mauro
Douaki, Ali
Zou, Yanqiu
Jin, Huaizhou
Descrovi, Emiliano
Krahne, Roman
Zaccaria, Remo Proietti
Cojoc, Dan
Kolataj, Karol
Acuna, Guillermo
Jin, Shangzhong
Garoli, Denis
contents Recent research on silver nanowires prepared on DNA templates has focused on two fundamental applications: nano-scale circuits and sensors. Despite its broad potential, the formation kinetics of DNA-templated silver nanowires remains unclear. Here, we present an experimental demonstration of the formation of silver nanowires with a diameter of 2.2+0.4 nm at the single-molecule level through chemical reduction. We conducted equilibrium and perturbation kinetic experiments to measure force spectroscopy during the formation of Ag+ -DNA complexes and Ag-DNA complexes, using optical tweezers combined with microfluidics. The addition of AgNO3 resulted in an increase in force of 5.5-7.5 pN within 2 minutes, indicating that Ag+ compacts the DNA structure. In contrast, the addition of hydroquinone caused the force to decrease by 4-5 pN. Morphological characterization confirmed the presence of a dense structure formed by silver atoms bridging the DNA strands, and revealed conformational differences before and after metallization. We compare our experimental data with Brownian dynamics simulations using a coarse-grained double-stranded DNA (dsDNA) model that provides insights on the dependency of the force on the persistence length.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2502_20913
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Dynamics of DNA-Templated Ultrafine Silver Nanowires Formation
Ma, Qifei
Chinappi, Mauro
Douaki, Ali
Zou, Yanqiu
Jin, Huaizhou
Descrovi, Emiliano
Krahne, Roman
Zaccaria, Remo Proietti
Cojoc, Dan
Kolataj, Karol
Acuna, Guillermo
Jin, Shangzhong
Garoli, Denis
Applied Physics
Soft Condensed Matter
Atomic and Molecular Clusters
Recent research on silver nanowires prepared on DNA templates has focused on two fundamental applications: nano-scale circuits and sensors. Despite its broad potential, the formation kinetics of DNA-templated silver nanowires remains unclear. Here, we present an experimental demonstration of the formation of silver nanowires with a diameter of 2.2+0.4 nm at the single-molecule level through chemical reduction. We conducted equilibrium and perturbation kinetic experiments to measure force spectroscopy during the formation of Ag+ -DNA complexes and Ag-DNA complexes, using optical tweezers combined with microfluidics. The addition of AgNO3 resulted in an increase in force of 5.5-7.5 pN within 2 minutes, indicating that Ag+ compacts the DNA structure. In contrast, the addition of hydroquinone caused the force to decrease by 4-5 pN. Morphological characterization confirmed the presence of a dense structure formed by silver atoms bridging the DNA strands, and revealed conformational differences before and after metallization. We compare our experimental data with Brownian dynamics simulations using a coarse-grained double-stranded DNA (dsDNA) model that provides insights on the dependency of the force on the persistence length.
title Dynamics of DNA-Templated Ultrafine Silver Nanowires Formation
topic Applied Physics
Soft Condensed Matter
Atomic and Molecular Clusters
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.20913