Posts tagged as:

self assembly

Peptoid nanosheets:
A platform for new nanotechnologies

April 22, 2010

Fresh from Ron Zuckerman’s lab at the Molecular Foundry: a new kind of molecular membrane — thin and crystalline — made by self-assembly of peptoid oligomers. As I discussed in an earlier post, peptoids have remarkable potential as building blocks for self-assembled nanosystems. Peptoids are peptide-like structures, but with monomers that can be chosen from [...]

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Exploiting strong, covalent bonds
for self assembly of robust nanosystems

February 6, 2010

Atomically precise self-assembly of complex structures can be engineered by providing for multiple binding interactions that

Cooperate to stabilize the correct configuration, in a thermodynamic sense, and

Do not stabilize any other configuration, in a kinetic sense

Roughly speaking, in the correct configuration, the parts fit together to allow all the binding interactions to operate simultaneously, and the [...]

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Self assembly and nanomachines:
Complexity, motion, and computational control

January 28, 2010

A commenter on the previous post raised several important issues, and my reply grew into this post. The comment is here, and my reply follows:

 

Subscribe

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Self-assembling nanostructures:
Building the building blocks

January 25, 2010

This post is prompted by a set of interrelated advances in chemistry that hold great promise for advancing the art of atomically precise fabrication. In this post, I’ll describe an emerging class of modular synthesis methods for making a diverse set of small, complex molecular building blocks.
The road to complex self-assembled nanosystems starts with stable [...]

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The Molecular Machine Path
to Molecular Manufacturing (2):
Exploiting Improved Methods and Building Blocks

December 27, 2009

Part 4 of a series on the history and prospects of advanced nanotechnology concepts, prompted by the upcoming 50th anniversary of Feynman’s historic talk, “There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom”.

Rigid, structurally diverse bis-peptide oligomers C. Schafmeister, JACS, 2006

In this post, I’d like to outline the promise of fabrication technologies that are within reach of [...]

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The Molecular Machine Path
to Molecular Manufacturing (1):
Foldamers and Brownian Assembly

December 25, 2009

Part 3 of a series prompted by the upcoming 50th anniversary of Feynman’s historic talk, “There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom”.

Lathe, 1911 A machine tool, used to make machines

In my view, the most attractive way forward in developing advanced molecular machine systems is by exploiting the molecular machine systems that are available today. Historically, [...]

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Molecular Nanomachines: Physical Principles and Implementation Strategies

October 1, 2009

I’ve migrated another paper to E-drexler.com:

Drexler, KE. “Molecular Nanomachines: Physical Principles and Implementation Strategies”, Annual Review of Biophysics and Biomolecular Structure, 23:377-405 (1994).
(With thanks to Robert Bradbury for the original HTML conversion.)

Click to read.

See also:

The Physical Basis of Atomically Precise Manufacturing
A Telescope Aimed at the Future
Productive nanosystems: the physics of molecular fabrication [pdf] (from [...]

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A DNA Origami Box

May 10, 2009

A paper in the current issue of Nature reports the fabrication of DNA origami boxes ~35 nm on a side; to my knowledge, these are the first closed structures made by these means.
Paul Rothemund’s initial 2006 Nature article [pdf] described a methodical way to form patterns of raised features on origami, based on a raster [...]

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Macromolecular Modeling
for Molecular Systems Engineering

April 16, 2009

Nir London of the Macromolecular Modeling Blog has invited me to offer my perspective on the field. After patiently waiting for me to complete it, he’s posted the resulting essay, which I have cross-posted below.
The Macromolecular Modeling Blog is hosted by the Rosetta Design Group, which offers molecular modeling services based on the Rosetta protein [...]

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Polyoxometalate Nanostructures

March 29, 2009

My technical talks often include a slide that shows several kinds of atomically precise components that may prove useful in composite nanosystems. One image is labeled “polyoxometalates”, a name that isn’t widely known. I think it should be.
Polyoxometalates (POMs) are molecular structures that are, in effect, atomically precise bits of metal oxide that contain [...]

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Effective Concentration in Self Assembly,
Catalysis, and Mechanosynthesis (2)

March 27, 2009

In my post on effective concentration, I noted that the concentration of water in water (about as high as a real concentration can be) is 55 M, while observed effective concentrations are often >55,000 M. This is puzzling until you realize that, for a molecular collision to result in a reaction, it must typically hit a target [...]

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Effective Concentration in Self Assembly,
Catalysis, and Mechanosynthesis (1)

March 22, 2009

I find that the concept of “effective concentration” helps to clarify my thinking about molecular processes that include catalysis, self assembly, and mechanosynthesis. The concept applies most directly to reaction rates, and it uses ordinary, solution-phase processes as a reference point.
Reactant concentration and reaction rate
In a relevant and typical case, molecules of type A react [...]

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