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Welcome to the pages of the Hybrid Nanostructures group. In our research we combine different methods from DNA nanotechnology, optical spectroscopy and scanning probe microscopy in order to study physico-chemical processes in nanoscale materials and at the single-molecule level. Apart from methods development we investigate specific questions such as the mechanisms of plasmon-induced chemical reactions, the nucleotide sequence dependence of DNA radiation damage and the mode of action of radiosensitizers that are applied in tumor radiation therapy.
We are members of the innovation center innoFSPEC and the research initiative "Elementary Processes of Light-Driven Reactions at Nanoscale Metals*.
Our recent work:
Using hot charge carriers far from a plasmonic nanoparticle surface is very attractive for many applications in catalysis and nanomedicine and will lead to a better understanding of plasmon-induced processes, such as hot-chargecarrier- or heat-driven chemical reactions. Herein we show that DNA is able to transfer hot electrons generated by a silver nanoparticle over several nanometers to drive a chemical reaction in a molecule nonadsorbed on the surface. For this we use 8-bromo-adenosine introduced in different positions within a double-stranded DNA oligonucleotide. The DNA is also used to assemble the nanoparticles into nanoparticles ensembles enabling the use of surface-enhanced Raman scattering to track the decomposition reaction. To prove the DNA-mediated transfer, the probe molecule was insulated from the source of charge carriers, which hindered the reaction. The results indicate that DNA can be used to study the transfer of hot electrons and the mechanisms of advanced plasmonic catalysts.
Molecular States and Spin Crossover of Hemin Studied by DNA Origami Enabled Single-Molecule Surface-Enhanced Raman Scattering; A. Dutta, K. Tapio, A. Suma, A. Mostafa, Y. Kanehira, V. Carnevale, G. Bussi, I. Bald, Nanoscale 2022, DOI: 10.1039/d2nr03664a.
