Assembly of anisotropic functionalized particles

The selectivity of DNA recognition inspires an elegant protocol for designing versatile nanoparticle (NP) assemblies. In recent years, a coarse-grained, scale accurate model for molecular dynamics was able to capture relevant kinetics of the DNA hybridization events and predict the crystallization behavior of various binary compounds of spherical DNA-functionalized nanoparticles. We have extended this model to describe the assembly of anisotropic shapes of functionalized nanoparticles. I will describe the assembly of functonalized gold nanoparticles with geometric shapes such as cubes and octahedra, as well as of DNA functionalized proteins. Addition of anisotropy can provide an analog to the atomic orbitals exhibited by conventional atomic crystals. We present results for various combinations of anisotropic shapes.