DNA light: Coating an ultraviolet LED with DNA nanofibers containing dyes creates a bulb that emits bright white light.
Angewandte Chemie
Dye-doped DNA nanofibers can be tuned to emit different colors of light.
By adding fluorescent dyes to DNA and then spinning the DNA strands into nanofibers, researchers at the University of Connecticut have made a new material that emits bright white light. The material absorbs energy from ultraviolet light and gives off different colors of light--from blue to orange to white--depending on the proportions of dye it contains.
The researchers, led by chemistry professor Gregory Sotzing, create white-light-emitting devices by coating ultraviolet (UV) light-emitting diodes (LEDs) with the material. They are even able to fine-tune the white color tone to make it warm or cold, as they report in a paper published online in the journal Angewandte Chemie.
The new material could be used to make a novel type of organic light bulb. The light emitters should also be longer-lasting because DNA is a very strong polymer, Sotzing says. "It's well beyond other polymers [in strength]," he notes, adding that it lasts 50 times longer than acrylic.
The color-tunable DNA material relies on an energy-transfer mechanism between two different fluorescent dyes. The key is to keep the dye molecules separated at a distance of 2 to 10 nanometers from each other. When UV light is shined on the material, one dye absorbs the energy and produces blue light. If the other dye molecule is at the right distance, it will absorb part of that blue-light energy and emit orange light.
By changing the ratio of the two dyes, the researchers can alter the combined color of light that the material gives off. Varying the amount of dye also lets them make finer tweaks. For example, by increasing the proportion of dye in the DNA from 1.33 percent to 10 percent, they can change the white light from cool to warm. "As you go across the white spectrum, if you want a soft yellow-type light or blue-type light, you can get these very easily with the DNA system," Sotzing says.
Others have used nanostructured materials such as silica nanoparticles and block copolymers--self-assembled materials containing two linked polymer chains--to get the right spacing between the two dyes. But, says David Walt, a chemistry professor at Tufts University, "the advantage in the present system seems to be that the DNA fibers orient the dyes in an optimum way for efficient [fluorescence energy transfer] to occur." Furthermore, when larger amounts of dye are used in the other materials, they start to aggregate. This has two effects: it decreases energy transfer between them, dimming the light output, and it also prevents precise color tuning.
A breakthrough in DNA origami creates twisted and curved shapes to order.
Dr. Thomas Netzel, a former Chairman of the American Chemical Society wrote a technical review of Vulvox's DNA transistor concept, and stated that it will likely change the world in innumerable ways when three dimensional chips containing millions of times as many transistors as those in current chips show up in robots and speech translators that really understand English and in self driving and self navigating cars. They will be constructed from DNA and modified DNA made on solid phase synthesizers or by Vulvox's proprietary DNA synthesis process. That process can make DNA for nanoelectronics at a production cost hundreds of times less expensive than current methods. Vulvox has been a leader in this field. The same process can be used to manufacture DNA for gene therapy RNA for silencer RNA gene therapy.
DNA has been used to grow and assemble ZnO nanowires for piezo-electric sensors and to generate electricity from vibrations. Vulvox DNA made with our proprietary process might also be in big demand for DNA nanolithography, as a shadow mask to manufacture 2nm wide nanoelectronic circuitry. (click here for details) To view details on constructing DNA circuitry and nanochips, click the above picture. Dr. Netzel's technical review is available on request.
Re: DNA nanoelectrconics project
Neil, how can you call yourself President and Chairman of a company that you are its only employee?
What I'd like to know is how they keep the DNA from breaking down due to... UV radiation. Wasn't that why we needed the ozone layer?
To answer the question upthread: Current white LEDs are actually blue LEDs with a fluorescent material to convert some of that blue light to green and red and so on--we can't make full-colour single LEDs without such trickery (yet). This makes for interestingly spiked colour spectrum diagrams--lots of blue, a deep trench, then a fairly nice bulge green to red. It's why LED flashlights currently give "off" coloured light. I'd like to see how these turn out, as they might actually give fairly even colour. Though you'd probably still need a UV filter to avoid eye damage.
I wonder how they plan to change the colour in-situ... they wouldn't be able to actively pump dyes in such minute quantities to get the LEDs to change colour for display applications. Furthurmore, the technology looks promising for Photonic computing.. but even there we might be able to bring about advancements by considering different frequencies... which are tedious in this case....
My guess is this technology will thrive in the basic applications.... like flashlights, glowing fabrics etc.
Manufacturing in the United States is in trouble. That's bad news not just for the country's economy but for the future of innovation.
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Joro 05
4 Comments
DNA Light..
Why need to convert UV in visible light? Many kinds of luminophor (inorganic i.e. stronger than DNA) already exist. About white light generation, the proper way is by RGB LEDs or quantium dots. Currently LED is the most efficient light source in the market.
Excellent innovation would be if DNA had electroluminiscence properties, to convert directly power into light, like LE Poymer
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