Fabrication of DNA-Templated Te and Bi₂Te₃ Nanowires by Galvanic Displacement

Abstract

This paper demonstrates the use of galvanic displacement to form continuous tellurium-based nanowires on DNA templates, enabling the conversion of metals, which can be deposited site-specifically, into other materials needed for device fabrication. Specifically, galvanic displacement reaction of copper and nickel nanowires is used to fabricate tellurium and bismuth telluride nanowires on λ-DNA templates. The method is simple, rapid, highly selective, and applicable to a number of different materials. In this study, continuous Ni and Cu nanowires are formed on DNA templates by seeding with Ag followed by electroless plating of the desired metal. These wires are then displaced by a galvanic displacement reaction where either Te or Bi2Te3 is deposited from an acidic solution containing HTeO2(+) ions or a combination of HTeO2(+) and Bi(3+) ions, and the metal wire is simultaneously dissolved due to oxidation. Both tellurium and bismuth telluride wires can be formed from nickel templates. In contrast, copper templates only form tellurium nanowires under the conditions considered. Therefore, the composition of the metal being displaced can be used to influence the chemistry of the resulting nanowire. Galvanic displacement of metals deposited on DNA templates has the potential to enable site-specific fabrication of a variety of materials and, thereby, make an important contribution to the advancement of useful devices via self-assembled nanotemplates.

Base Motif Recognition and Design of DNA Templates for Fluorescent Silver Clusters by Machine Learning

“…Nevertheless, despite the rapid growth of applications for Ag N ‐DNA, it is not understood why certain sequences produce brightly fluorescent solutions while other apparently similar sequences do not. This question of the influence of biopolymer host sequence on the structure of templated inorganic particles is scientifically rich, with potential for high payoff if approaches can be developed to address the complexities introduced by sequence diversity and flexibility of polymeric templates. In the specific context of Ag N ‐DNA, robust design methods for DNA template strands are sorely needed to aid future applications development.…”

Template-based syntheses for shape controlled nanostructures

“…Similar improvements in the zT of chalcogenides such as Bi 2 Te 3 and Bi x Sb 2 − x Te 3 , some of the best bulk thermoelectric materials, have also been modeled [385,386] and demonstrated experimentally [387,388]. These materials may be readily grown in nanowire morphology via templated electrodeposition [387,[389][390][391][392][393], with Bi 2 Te 3 nanowires also having been grown via galvanic displacement on DNA templates [394]. Increased zT has also been demonstrated in superlattice structures, such as PbTe/Te, PbTe/PbSe [395], and Bi 2 Te 3 [396] superlattice structures may be combined with nanowire morphologies via templated electrodeposition for potentially even greater gains in zT.…”

From Galvanic to Anti‐Galvanic Synthesis of Bimetallic Nanoparticles and Applications in Catalysis, Sensing, and Materials Science

“…[53] Nevertheless, Harb and co-workers reported that DNAstabilized Ni or Cu nanowires reacted with HTeO 2+ ions or the mixture of HTeO 2+ and Bi 3+ ions by GR to produce Te or Bi 2 Te 3 nanowires. [54] The GR left the nanowire structure unchanged. In this study, continuous DNA-stabilized Ni and Cu nanowires were synthesized by seeding with Ag and electroless plating of Ni or Cu.…”