Self-assembled nanostructure electronic devices

Hirst, A.R., Escuder, B. and Miravet, J.F. and Smith, D.K. (2008) High-tech applications of self-assembling supramolecular nanostructured gel-phase materials from regenerative medicine to electronic devices. Angewandte Chemie International Edition, 47 (42), 8002-8018. 

Basic nanostructures encompass such simple and useful items as wires (a thin line of conducting atoms surrounded by an equally thin shell of insulating atoms), rods (which can be used in a variety of applications, from information storage and sensors to miniature diodes, cathodes and other integral components for electronics) and dots (small but exceedingly useful markers that can be used as atomic tracking devices). Other materials that will no doubt become extremely useful for self-assembly include nanocatalysts, which speed up chemical reactions. 

PANI nanowires are ID nanostructures which are very interesting from the nanotechnology point of view, due to their potential use in sensors and nanoscale electronic devices. DNA can be considered as an anionic polyelectrolyte that can behave as a template for PANI enzymatic polymerization in solution [20]. Double stranded DNA can be attached to aminated surfaces by electrostatic self assembly, providing a linear template for further aniline electrostatic assembly. By using this method followed by enzymatic polymerization of the assembled aniline, Ma et al. [69] and Nickels et al. [70] showed that stretched DNA molecules were able to template the enzymatic synthesis of PANI nanowires, according to the mechanism showed in Figure 8.7. 

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