THIS GRANT IS A CONTINUATION OF N00014-14-1-0702 Integration of DNA origami and microfabricated optics to create molecular light sources
Abstract
Over the past decade there have been several studies of the interaction of single light emitters coupled to microfabricated nanophotonic elements (e.g. photonic crystal cavities, waveguides, and resonators). These coupled systems improve the performance of light emitters through an increase in quantum efficiency, suppression of bleaching and blinking, and linewidth sharpening. Further, the integration of light emitters with microfabricated structures allows for the creation of devices and architectures suitable for quantum information processing, super-resolution imaging, and novel sensing modalities. However, positioning individual light emitters reliably onto microfabricated nanophotonic elements is difficult: typically only statistically-defined numbers of emitters can be applied and their exact position and orientation cannot be controlled a priori. Defined arrangements of multiple emitters have been impossible to create. In the proposed effort, DNA origami will be used to position multiple light emitters in order to realize supramolecular light sources. Then, the optically active DNA origami will be integrated with micro-fabricated optical devices to realize a new class of nanophotonic devices that are currently impossible to fabricate with any “top-down” approach. That will be done using the Principal Investigator’s newly optimized directed self-assembly method for localizing origami. Finally, the detailed optical properties of the new nanophotonic devices will be studied. This project is intended to be a model for how DNA origami-templated nanodevices can be integrated into device architectures at a large scale. To date, no functionally-active origami-templated device has been pre-positioned within the environment it is meant to operate in. Others have tried to create origami-templated nanoelectronic devices and integrate them. However, the integration of those nanoelectronic devices has been difficult due to the fine lithography and precise alignment of successive lithographic steps required to align electrodes to the devices to create connections; and the poor electronic characteristics of the connections of the electrode/origami-device interface if the connections were made, the difficulty in making them better, and the significant variability from connection to connection. The Principal Investigator suggests that nanooptical devices may be intrinsically better suited to construction and integration by self-assembly than nanoelectronic devices. The optical coupling of signals into and out of devices may not have the same stringency of geometry that electronic signals into and out of nanoelectronics devices have. He aims to create the first DNA origami device whose function might have an actual use where low-photon, high spatially-localized light sources are required, and to integrate a few dozen of such devices into a larger architecture.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Jun 03, 2016
- Source ID
- N000141612159
Entities
People
- Paul W. K. Rothemund
Organizations
- California Institute of Technology
- Office of Naval Research
- United States Navy