What is it about?
DNA can be programmed to self-assemble into any anisotropic nano-structures. We show how to use oxDNA and LAMMPS, two freely available simulation packages, to develop new liquid crystal formers and test their phase behaviour.
Featured Image
Photo by Saubhagya gandharv on Unsplash
Why is it important?
Our approach allows us to quickly test new types of anisotropic particles that are capable to form new liquid-crystal phases that may be relevant for display and many other optical applications, without having to go through many different molecular or colloidal synthesis that are time-consuming and often too expensive.
Perspectives
I am proud that this work was achieved by a master student, supervised by my PhD student and me as part of their 2 month project. Although he worked a little more, because it was an exciting topic, it taught him how to do computational scientific work and how to translate a real world system onto a computer. This work shows that natural sciences offer a unique, open-ended field of ever new discoveries that are truly unique.
Erika Eiser
Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Toward new liquid crystal phases of DNA mesogens, APL Materials, June 2023, American Institute of Physics,
DOI: 10.1063/5.0145570.
You can read the full text:
Contributors
The following have contributed to this page
