| 초록 |
We investigated that topographic confinement in micro-channels can produce aligned domains of the liquid crystal phases of complementary duplex short deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) oligomers, which were found to exhibit nematic and columnar liquid crystal phases, even though such materials lack the shape anisotropy required for liquid crystal ordering. These phases were produced by the end-to-end stacking of the duplex nano-DNAs into poly-dispersed anisotropic rod-shaped aggregates, which can order into liquid crystals. Optical microscopy probing birefringence and fluorescence polarization showed that the liquid crystal phase of a 1:1 mixture of the complementary dodecamers 5′–CCTCAAAACTCC–3′ and 5′–GGAGTTTTGAGG–3′ in aqueous solution was aligned with the duplex DNA chains oriented normal to the channel axis. |
