Programmable Nanoparticle clusters via DNA linking

Due to selective recognition, short complementary DNA strands have been widely used as linkers to direct the crystallization or the formation of larger assemblies of nanoparticles. We study the self-assembly of small clusters through DNA hybridization in a binary mixture of spherical nucleic acid gold nanoparticles (SNA-GNPs) with the larger SNA-GNPs in excess by performingthe molecular dynamics simulationson the graphical processing unit (GPU).The resultant structures are self-assembled clusters with a varying number of large SNA-GNPs clustersaround the small ones, and the structure of the clusters varies as the ratio of large to small hydrodynamic radii changes.