Analysis of Au-DNA Nanowires by Adding HCl to Change Charges of Au Nanoparticles

Top-down processes based on photolithography technology have been developed by using light sources with short wavelength, however, the processes are expected to meet their limits in higher integration of semiconductor integrated circuits. To overcome the limits, researches on bottom-up processes have been proceeded. One of those, fabrication of nanodevices by using nanoparticles has been on research. But it is difficult to align nanoparticles at appropriate positions. To resolve this, studies has been proceeded to form nanowires by bonding DNA molecules which have self-assembly property and positive-charged functionalized gold nanoparticles. There are negative-charged phosphates in backbones of DNA molecules. By using the attractive force between the negative charge of the phosphates and the positive charge of gold nanoparticles, the Au-DNA nanowires are made. However, bonding Au nanoparticles only on DNA molecules, not other nanoparticles, is to be solved. So we studied to resolve this problem. In the formation of Au nanoparticles, we changed the charge of Au nanoparticles by adding HCl to control pH of the functionalized nanoparticles, measured zeta potential. Then we bonded the nanoparticles and DNA molecules and made observation by using FE-SEM and AFM.