Final Report Summary - META (Materials Enhancement for Technological Applications)
META (Materials Enhancement for Technological Applications, http://centronast.it/meta-project-description) brought together partners for the EU and the US in a multidisciplinary consortium combining the unique expertise of groups with an extensive track record. The partnership of NAST (University of Rome Tor Vergata, and CUB (Comenius University of Bratislava) with ORNL (Oak Ridge National Laboratory, USA) has EU researchers with the expertise and the facilities available in the Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences (CNMS) and the Neutron Spallation Source (SNS). Partnering with SNS and CNMS has offered both staff and students access to state-of-the-art research equipment and substantial opportunities for collaborative and cross-disciplinary research and training, with the opportunity to network with scientists from many countries.
Aim of META is the investigation of new technologies, based on integrated materials, which pave the way to the exploitation of entirely new concepts in the development of micro and nanodevice”.
The project is organized in two Work Packages (WP), dealing with selfassembly of DNA breadboards on nanofabricated metal electrodes and with the investigation of ionic conductivity at the interface of heteoepitaxial oxide layers.
WP 1 (DNA planar architectures exploitable as “mother boards” for self-assemblage of functional components) exploits the smart selfassembly properties of biomolecules to produce, arrange, localize and interface structural scaffolds onto which molecular components will in turn selfassemble in an organized and predictable order. This is in some way an attempt to mimic the way nature works, creating the basis for a hierarchical arrangement of functional structures; however we also want to maintain the advantages offered by the velocity and the ruggedness of solid state devices. Therefore, this project workpackage is devoted to fill the gap that exists between the recently developed skills in producing artificially designed, but “naturally” selfassembling, nanoarchitectures based on DNA sequences, and the “user friendly” solid state electronics methods; these must necessarily be used to input and output signals from and to new envisageable “devices” based on soft matter. Molecular electronics, bioelectronics, ultra high density arrays of sensors, will all be boosted by the assessment of such hybrid technologies.
DNA is indeed an exceptional material to selfassemble predesigned scaffolds within which specific attachment locations are programmed, with or without aptameric connectors. Functional components based on proteins, more DNA structures or conducting polymers will then selfassemble on such nanometrically defined locations in predesogned paths and patterns. In this project workpackage we have successfully selfassembled flat rectangular tiles built by the "DNA origami" technique onto large arrays of gold anchoring nanodots. There are more than 200 specific locations on each face of the flat origami tile (1 molecular component/30 nm2), and having demonstrated here that such breadboards can be suspended across different nanopillars of a set, the lower face of the breadboard can in principle be exploited. Nanodot sizes are a little larger (25 nm in diameter, 7 nm tall) than the minimum achievable size to increase the rate of selfassembly, but are addressable with 10 nm accuracy once the coordinates of suitable markers are known. Most of the demonstrative work performed in WP1 used thiol linkers to the electron beam fabricated gold nanodots, but in perspective more suitable materials for anchoring electrodes, such as Pt, Cr, or graphene will be investigated. By density functional and classical molecular dynamics approaches, the project also studied the details of the interaction of short peptidic sequences with specific materials as these interactions may represent a formidable tool for addressability of DNA based breadboards on solid state materials patterns with the desired orientation. Finally, the methodology for the calculation of charge transfer rates along and across DNA based breadboards was assessed.
This hybrid organic-solid state technology overcomes many of the bottlenecks that have so fare hampered a quick development of molecular electronics: in particular, via selforganization on DNA breadboards, those issues connected with unreliable positioning, orientation and stability of the organic molecular semiconductors on the metal or oxide transducers. Next upgrades of the experimental findings of META WP1 will concern use of platinum, chromium and graphitc carbon (graphene, CNTs) as electrodic materials, and electrical measurements through electroactive proteic components.
WP 2 explored the peculiar properties originating at the interface of nanostructured ceramic oxides. During the project the exploitation of different preparative procedures, from wet chemistry to Pulsed Laser Deposition, allowed to obtain innovative compositions and architectures. This result, combined with the most advanced characterization techniques (from neutron spectroscopy to electrochemical strain microscopy) established the nanoscale mechanisms for electrical energy conversion and dissipation together with the kinetics and thermodynamics of defect-mediated bias-induced phase transitions in energy materials on the nanoscale.
Particular attention has been devoted to the proton and oxygen mobility and to oxygen evolution and oxygen reduction reactions, which are the key processes of energy conversion devices such as fuel cells.
Results obtained within META WP2, on nanostructured oxide thin films with enhanced ionic/protonic conductivity offer several possibilities for exploitation. These range from energy conversion (mostly fuel cells with a single chamber architecture), to surface catalysis and memristors based on highly conducting oxides. Moreover, the equipment developed in the framework of META, offers the possibility of exploitation such as the commercial development of a SPM system for the local investigation of electrochemical properties on a nanometer scale at variable temperature and in controlled atmosphere.
The understanding and exploitation of new, complex functional materials is intrinsically an interdisciplinary effort at the interface between physics, chemistry, biology, material science, and engineering.
The two WPs of META have addressed some fundamental challenges related to the development of peculiarly structured functional materials; by gaining a deeper understanding of the structure and dynamics of nanostructured matter on multiple length and time scales, and endowing materials with specific local properties, META has demonstrated two integrable concepts aiming at new types of nano devices.
A complete Publishable Summary can be found in the attached file META_FINAL REPORT_PS
Aim of META is the investigation of new technologies, based on integrated materials, which pave the way to the exploitation of entirely new concepts in the development of micro and nanodevice”.
The project is organized in two Work Packages (WP), dealing with selfassembly of DNA breadboards on nanofabricated metal electrodes and with the investigation of ionic conductivity at the interface of heteoepitaxial oxide layers.
WP 1 (DNA planar architectures exploitable as “mother boards” for self-assemblage of functional components) exploits the smart selfassembly properties of biomolecules to produce, arrange, localize and interface structural scaffolds onto which molecular components will in turn selfassemble in an organized and predictable order. This is in some way an attempt to mimic the way nature works, creating the basis for a hierarchical arrangement of functional structures; however we also want to maintain the advantages offered by the velocity and the ruggedness of solid state devices. Therefore, this project workpackage is devoted to fill the gap that exists between the recently developed skills in producing artificially designed, but “naturally” selfassembling, nanoarchitectures based on DNA sequences, and the “user friendly” solid state electronics methods; these must necessarily be used to input and output signals from and to new envisageable “devices” based on soft matter. Molecular electronics, bioelectronics, ultra high density arrays of sensors, will all be boosted by the assessment of such hybrid technologies.
DNA is indeed an exceptional material to selfassemble predesigned scaffolds within which specific attachment locations are programmed, with or without aptameric connectors. Functional components based on proteins, more DNA structures or conducting polymers will then selfassemble on such nanometrically defined locations in predesogned paths and patterns. In this project workpackage we have successfully selfassembled flat rectangular tiles built by the "DNA origami" technique onto large arrays of gold anchoring nanodots. There are more than 200 specific locations on each face of the flat origami tile (1 molecular component/30 nm2), and having demonstrated here that such breadboards can be suspended across different nanopillars of a set, the lower face of the breadboard can in principle be exploited. Nanodot sizes are a little larger (25 nm in diameter, 7 nm tall) than the minimum achievable size to increase the rate of selfassembly, but are addressable with 10 nm accuracy once the coordinates of suitable markers are known. Most of the demonstrative work performed in WP1 used thiol linkers to the electron beam fabricated gold nanodots, but in perspective more suitable materials for anchoring electrodes, such as Pt, Cr, or graphene will be investigated. By density functional and classical molecular dynamics approaches, the project also studied the details of the interaction of short peptidic sequences with specific materials as these interactions may represent a formidable tool for addressability of DNA based breadboards on solid state materials patterns with the desired orientation. Finally, the methodology for the calculation of charge transfer rates along and across DNA based breadboards was assessed.
This hybrid organic-solid state technology overcomes many of the bottlenecks that have so fare hampered a quick development of molecular electronics: in particular, via selforganization on DNA breadboards, those issues connected with unreliable positioning, orientation and stability of the organic molecular semiconductors on the metal or oxide transducers. Next upgrades of the experimental findings of META WP1 will concern use of platinum, chromium and graphitc carbon (graphene, CNTs) as electrodic materials, and electrical measurements through electroactive proteic components.
WP 2 explored the peculiar properties originating at the interface of nanostructured ceramic oxides. During the project the exploitation of different preparative procedures, from wet chemistry to Pulsed Laser Deposition, allowed to obtain innovative compositions and architectures. This result, combined with the most advanced characterization techniques (from neutron spectroscopy to electrochemical strain microscopy) established the nanoscale mechanisms for electrical energy conversion and dissipation together with the kinetics and thermodynamics of defect-mediated bias-induced phase transitions in energy materials on the nanoscale.
Particular attention has been devoted to the proton and oxygen mobility and to oxygen evolution and oxygen reduction reactions, which are the key processes of energy conversion devices such as fuel cells.
Results obtained within META WP2, on nanostructured oxide thin films with enhanced ionic/protonic conductivity offer several possibilities for exploitation. These range from energy conversion (mostly fuel cells with a single chamber architecture), to surface catalysis and memristors based on highly conducting oxides. Moreover, the equipment developed in the framework of META, offers the possibility of exploitation such as the commercial development of a SPM system for the local investigation of electrochemical properties on a nanometer scale at variable temperature and in controlled atmosphere.
The understanding and exploitation of new, complex functional materials is intrinsically an interdisciplinary effort at the interface between physics, chemistry, biology, material science, and engineering.
The two WPs of META have addressed some fundamental challenges related to the development of peculiarly structured functional materials; by gaining a deeper understanding of the structure and dynamics of nanostructured matter on multiple length and time scales, and endowing materials with specific local properties, META has demonstrated two integrable concepts aiming at new types of nano devices.
A complete Publishable Summary can be found in the attached file META_FINAL REPORT_PS