Browse by author
Lookup NU author(s): Dr Scott Watson, Professor Andrew HoultonORCiD, Dr Ben Horrocks
Full text for this publication is not currently held within this repository. Alternative links are provided below where available.
The thermodynamics of the templating of materials on one-dimensional templates, such as DNA, is modeled by considering two terms: the surface tension of the material (gamma) and a line energy (sigma = 2 pi r(T gamma T)) that represents the adhesion of the material to the template (radius r(T)). We show that as long as the reaction stoichiometry does not exceed a certain limit (root 3 nu/2 pi < r(T) vertical bar gamma T vertical bar/gamma; nu = volume of material per unit length of template) then a sample of smooth, uniform wires is the equilibrium state. If the amount of material exceeds this limit, then the material will comprise a single macroscopic particle at equilibrium. The behavior of the system is similar to a morphological wetting transition and the model can rationalize the available experimental data on the reaction conditions required to form smooth DNA-templated nanowires. Using the framework of linear non-equilibrium thermodynamics, we also show that the model can describe qualitatively the observed evolution of these nanostructures from beads-on-a-string morphologies to smooth nanowires and construct a stochastic differential equation for the process. Numerical simulations and scaling arguments suggest that the same scaling behavior as the Edwards-Wilkinson equation is observed.
Author(s): Watson SMD, Houlton A, Horrocks BR
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Nanotechnology
Year: 2012
Volume: 23
Issue: 50
Print publication date: 29/11/2012
ISSN (print): 0957-4484
ISSN (electronic): 1361-6528
Publisher: Institute of Physics Publishing Ltd.
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/0957-4484/23/50/505603
DOI: 10.1088/0957-4484/23/50/505603
Altmetrics provided by Altmetric