Pursuing excitonic energy transfer with programmable DNA-based optical breadboards
Divita Mathur, Sebastián A. Dı́az, Niko Hildebrandt, Ryan D. Pensack, Bernard Yurke, Austin Biaggne, Lan Li, Joseph S. Melinger, Mario G. Ancona, William B. Knowlton, Igor L. Medintz
Abstract
and thus switch between ET pathways within a given assembly, actively change its properties, and even repeatedly toggle between two states such as on/off. Here, we review progress in developing these composite materials for potential applications that include artificial light harvesting, smart sensors, nanoactuators, optical barcoding, bioprobes, cryptography, computing, charge conversion, and theranostics to even new forms of optical data storage. Along with an introduction into the DNA scaffolding itself, the diverse fluorophores utilized in these structures, their incorporation chemistry, and the photophysical processes they are designed to exploit, we highlight the evolution of DNA architectures implemented in the pursuit of increased transfer efficiency and the key lessons about ET learned from each iteration. We also focus on recent and growing efforts to exploit DNA as a scaffold for assembling molecular dye aggregates that host delocalized excitons as a test bed for creating excitonic circuits and accessing other quantum-like optical phenomena. We conclude with an outlook on what is still required to transition these materials from a research pursuit to application specific prototypes and beyond.