Duke Research: Creating Knowledge. Serving Society

Mesh for Really Small Mosquitoes

USING DNA’S NATURAL ABILITY to self-assemble, a team led by Thomas LaBean of Computer Science has been creating nanometer-scale lattices, an early step in developing ultra-tiny electronic devices. “The train track looking structures are made of two double-strands of DNA held together by double-strand DNA bridges that are too thin to see, but we know they are there because the alignments of neighboring tracks are so perfect,” LaBean says. In this picture, taken with an atomic force microscope, each square in the mesh is a little under 20 millionths of a millimeter. Thom LaBean’s Faculty Page