Quantitative study of the effect of coverage on the hybridization efficiency of surface-bound DNA nanostructures

Authors: Elham Mirmomtaz, Matteo Castronovo, Christian Grunwald, Fouzia Bano, Denis Scaini, Ali A Ensafi, Giacinto Scoles, Loredana Casalis

Publication date: 2008/11/4

Journal name: Nano letters

Volume: 8

Pages: 4134-4139

Publisher: American Chemical Society

We demonstrate that, contrary to current understanding, the density of probe molecules is
not responsible for the lack of hybridization in high density single-stranded DNA (ss-DNA)
self-assembled monolayers (SAMs). To this end, we use nanografting to fabricate well
packed ss-DNA nanopatches within a “carpet matrix” SAM of inert thiols on gold surfaces.
The DNA surface density is varied by changing the “writing” parameters, for example, tip
speed, and number of scan lines. Since ss-DNA is 50 times more flexible than ds-DNA, ...