Diatomaceous Fungal and Bacterial Building Blocks for Material Synthesis
Abstract
This final report provides a summary of the scientific and technological breakthroughs achieved during the 3 years of this project. It includes a list of publications, participation in scientific meetings, workshops, and lectures, and invention disclosures. The project was extremely productive as the highlights of the scientific and technological accomplishments in this report will show. The objectives of this project were: (I) To develop methods for controlling the interaction between nanoparticles and microorganism templates to allow the rational assembly of micro- and macroscopic materials with properties tailored at the nanoparticle level; (2) to align and organize nanoparticle!microorganism composite materials three-dimensionally on surfaces to allow full exploitation of their unique properties; (3) to develop novel nanoparticle structures with unusual properties that can be used in materials assembly, and (4) to characterize and evaluate the electrical transport, photovoltaic, and spectroscopic enhancement properties. During the three years of this grant significant progress was made towards all four objectives. With respect to using diatoms as templates for the development of new nanomaterials, a method was developed to generate nanostructured metallic microshells using microorganism precursors. The electronic properties of these metallic microshells were investigated, and a method developed to assemble various nanoparticles onto microorganism surfaces to exploit the properties of these nanoparticles for applications in microelectronics. It was also shown that these microshells can serve as substrates for the detection of analytes using surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS).
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Apr 08, 2008
- Accession Number
- ADA480582
Entities
People
- Chad Mirkin
Organizations
- Northwestern University