Our ultimate goal is to take advantage of spontaneous hierarchical processes to control matter on the nanometer scale by genetically engineering functionality into proteins that self-assemble into higher-order structures.

Protein-Templated Nanoparticle Quantum Dot Arrays

One of the specific issue in Materials Science we address using proteins is that of the technological limitations encountered within the semiconductor fab industry. Chip manufacturers seek to cram more and more transistors into smaller and smaller spaces to keep up with Moore’s Law. The physical limitations inherent to current ion and electron beam lithography drive investigations into alternative techniques for patterning materials on the nanometer scale. To this end, we have engineered inorganic binding specificity into a protein called a heat shock protein (HSP60) that self-assembles into an oligomeric double-ring structure called a chaperonin. Chaperonins are hollow cylindrical structures that we envision are ideal containers or vessels to bind materials. We use two-dimensional crystals of engineered chaperonins to direct the deposition of pre-formed nanoparticles (quantum dots) into ordered arrays with nanometer scale resolution and micron scale long range order. The order within these arrays is a result of the periodicity and spacing reflecting the order within the lattice of the underlying 2D crystal. These arrays are being investigated for use in both logic and memory-based devices.