Twitter
Advertisement

Scientists create world's smallest replica of Van Gogh's Starry Night

The monochrome image - a 256x256 pixel grid - is the width of a dime and contains 65,536 pixels.

Latest News
article-main
Visitors take a look at Vincent van Gogh's 'Starry Night' at the MoMA exhibit, on March 24, 2004 in Berlin, Germany.
FacebookTwitterWhatsappLinkedin

Scientists, including one of Indian-origin, have created one of the world's smallest reproductions of Vincent van Gogh's famous painting The Starry Night, using folded DNA to precisely place glowing molecules.

The monochrome image - a 256x256 pixel grid - was a proof-of-concept project that demonstrated, for the first time, how the precision placement of DNA origami can be used to build chip-based devices like computer circuits at smaller scales than ever before.


The world's smallest reproductions of "The Starry Night" contains 65,536 pixels and is the width of a dime across.

DNA origami is a technique that allows researchers to fold a long strand of DNA into any desired shape. The folded DNA then acts as a scaffold onto which researchers can attach and organise all kinds of nanometre-scale components, from fluorescent molecules to electrically conductive carbon nanotubes to drugs.

"Think of it a bit like the pegboards people use to organise tools in their garages, only in this case, the pegboard assembles itself from DNA strands and the tools likewise find their own positions," said Paul Rothemund, from California Institute of Technology (Caltech), who had developed the DNA origami technique 10 years ago.

"It all happens in a test tube without human intervention, which is important because all of the parts are too small to manipulate efficiently, and we want to make billions of devices," Rothemund said.

The process has the potential to influence a variety of applications from drug delivery to the construction of nanoscale computers.

In 2009, Rothemund and colleagues at IBM Research first described a technique through which DNA origami can be positioned at precise locations on surfaces using electron-beam lithography to etch sticky binding sites that have the same shape as the origami. For example, triangular sticky patches bind triangularly folded DNA.

Over the last seven years, Rothemund and Ashwin Gopinath, senior postdoctoral scholar in bioengineering at Caltech, have refined and extended this technique so that DNA shapes can be precisely positioned on almost any surface used in the manufacture of computer chips.

In the new study, they report the first application of the technique - using DNA origami to install fluorescent molecules into microscopic light sources.

"It's like using DNA origami to screw molecular light bulbs into microscopic lamps," Rothemund said.

In this case, the lamps are microfabricated structures called photonic crystal cavities (PCCs), which are tuned to resonate at a particular wavelength of light, much like a tuning fork vibrates with a particular pitch.

Created within a thin glass-like membrane, a PCC takes the form of a bacterium-shaped defect within an otherwise perfect honeycomb of holes.

"Depending on the exact size and spacing of the holes, a particular wavelength of light reflects off the edge of the cavity and gets trapped inside," said Gopinath, the lead author of the study.

The research was published in the journal Nature.

Find your daily dose of news & explainers in your WhatsApp. Stay updated, Stay informed-  Follow DNA on WhatsApp.
Advertisement

Live tv

Advertisement
Advertisement