Optically Triggered Melting of DNA on Individual Semiconducting Carbon Nanotubes

Abstract

Optical excitation of nanostructures is known to induce local heating, a phenomenon that has been intensely exploited for drug release, gene delivery, cancer thermotherapy, and energy harvesting. However, the effect is typically small requiring collective heating of a large concentration or aggregates of particles. Herein, we show that optical excitation of individual semiconducting single‐walled carbon nanotubes triggers strongly localized heating adequate to melt non‐covalently attached double‐stranded oligonucleotides in solution. In contrast to conventional thermal dehybridization, this optically triggered DNA melting occurs at a solution temperature that is 22 °C lower than the DNA melting temperature. This unexpectedly large localized optical heating effect provides important new insights to design selective optical nanoheaters at the single particle level.

Document Details

Document Type
Pub Defense Publication
Publication Date
Jul 07, 2017
Source ID
10.1002/ange.201703332

Entities

People

  • Brendan Meany
  • Chunyan Wang
  • YuHuang Wang

Organizations

  • National Institute of General Medical Sciences
  • Office of Naval Research
  • University of Maryland

Tags

Fields of Study

  • Physics

Readers

  • Materials Science and Engineering.
  • Nanocomposite Materials Science
  • Thermal Physics or Thermal Science.

Technology Areas

  • Microelectronics