Metal Nanoparticles and Silica Structures: Self-Assembly and Shape Control

Dr. Jaswinder Sharma
Nanosystems, Separations, and Materials Research Group
Energy and Transportation Science Division
Oak Ridge National Laboratory

Abstract: There is a constant drive towards achieving control of size, shape, and assembly of materials at nano- and microscale. Such a control can provide unique optical, electronic, and mechanical properties, which are highly desirable for applications ranging from energy harvesting to structural materials. Among available approaches to organize nanomaterials, DNA directed self-assembly has emerged as a viable candidate. DNA directed self-assembly exploits the complementary interactions between DNA bases in order to achieve programmable control of self-assembled structures, which can be further employed as a template to organize the nanomaterials. While DNA base-metal ion interactions can be employed to synthesize materials with interesting optical properties. In order to control shape of materials we explored the polymer emulsion based processes and achieved silica structures of various shapes.

In today’s talk, two- and three-dimensional organization of gold nanoparticles using DNA directed self-assembly, and the use of DNA as a template to synthesize fluorescent metallic nanoclusters will be presented. Synthesis of shape controlled silica structure will also be discussed.

Bio: Dr. Jaswinder Sharma’s experience includes synthesis and self-assembly of nanomaterials. He earned his Ph.D. in Chemistry from Arizona State University in 2009 while working on DNA directed self-assembly of nanomaterials. Then he went to Los Alamos National Laboratory as a Director’s Fellow postdoc and focused on the synthesis of fluorescent metallic nanoclusters. He joined Oak Ridge National Laboratory as a Wigner Fellow research staff in 2012. His current research interests include morphology-controlled synthesis of ceramic structures, high performance fibers, and transparent thermal insulation.