Saturday, March 5, 2011

Deoxy ribonucleic acid - DNA

You might be wondering what does DNA have to do in Optoelectronics. I recently read that DNA based materials  had optical properties and could be used in photonics in various applications. The double helix structure of DNA is awesome. Apart from being used in cloning, genetic mapping, and crime investigation, DNA is now appearing in clean rooms of semiconductor and thin-film coating facilities. It turns out that DNA, when concentrated into a thin-film bio-polymer through reactions with surfactants, can be used to create improved optoelectronic devices.




  Fig DNA as material for synthesis into bio-polymer thin film that can be used in many optoelectronic devices

Making DNA biopolymer into a commercial material is the aim of researchers like Steckl, who are attracted by optical and electrical properties of thin films of DNA biopolymer.
“These DNA-based materials possess unique electromagnetic and optical properties that no other known polymers have: low optical loss over a broad wavelength (350 to 2000 nm) and five orders of magnitude more conductivity,” says James G. Grote, principal electronics research engineer at the Air Force Research Laboratory Materials and Manufacturing. I am Looking forward to hear from you all about your findings and opinion about the topic.


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