U of T researchers build an antenna for light

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http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-07/uotf-uot070811.php

Public release date: 10-Jul-2011

Contact: Jef Ekins
[e-mail]
416-946-7036
http://www.engineering.utoronto.ca/home.htm">University of Toronto Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering

U of T researchers build an antenna for light

TORONTO, ON – University of Toronto researchers have derived inspiration from the photosynthetic apparatus in plants to engineer a new generation of nanomaterials that control and direct the energy absorbed from light.

Their findings are reported in a forthcoming issue of Nature Nanotechnology, which will be released on July 10, 2011.

The U of T researchers, led by Professors Shana Kelley and Ted Sargent, report the construction of what they term "artificial molecules."

"Nanotechnologists have for many years been captivated by quantum dots – particles of semiconductor that can absorb and emit light efficiently, and at custom-chosen wavelengths," explained co-author Kelley, a Professor at the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy, the Department of Biochemistry in the Faculty of Medicine, and the Department of Chemistry in the Faculty of Arts & Science. "What the community has lacked – until now – is a strategy to build higher-order structures, or complexes, out of multiple different types of quantum dots. This discovery fills that gap."

The team combined its expertise in DNA and in semiconductors to invent a generalized strategy to bind certain classes of nanoparticles to one another.

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http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2011.100