Morphology of Mixed Langmuir and Langmuir-Schaefer Monolayers with Covered CdSe/CdS/ZnS Quantum Dots and Arachidic Acid.

The process of formation of a Langmuir-Schaefer (LS) matrix based on a mixed monolayer of arachidic acid (AA) and 8 nm CdSe/CdS/ZnS quantum dots (QDs) stabilized by molecules of trioctylphosphine oxide (TOPO) was investigated. The change in the morphology, monolayer compressibility, and area per elementary cell of the created mixed monolayers, depending on the ratio of the components, was studied. It is shown that the change in the morphology of Langmuir-Blodgett (LB) monolayers begins to occur at a ratio between the number of QDs and AA molecules of 1:24. Dendrimeric structures with a thickness of the order of 30-40 nm appear in the mixed monolayer when LB film deposition was carried out above the collapse surface pressure of a Langmuir film from only TOPO-covered QDs. Information on the dependence of the morphology of such structures on the molar ratio of the components is necessary for the production of ordered 2D nanostructures containing 0D and 1D objects with quantum bonds. Such nanostructures can be used in nanoelectronic and optoelectronic devices as a sensitive sensor element. The obtained results would be relevant for any type of spherical shape nanoparticles.

Ab initio electron propagator calculations of transverse conduction through DNA nucleotide bases in 1-nm nanopore corroborate third generation sequencing.

BACKGROUND: The conduction properties of DNA molecule, particularly its transverse conductance (electron transfer through nucleotide bridges), represent a point of interest for DNA chemistry community, especially for DNA sequencing. However, there is no fully developed first-principles theory for molecular conductance and current that allows one to analyze the transverse flow of electrical charge through a nucleotide base. METHODS: We theoretically investigate the transverse electron transport through all four DNA nucleotide bases by implementing an unbiased ab initio theoretical approach, namely, the electron propagator theory. RESULTS: The electrical conductance and current through DNA nucleobases (guanine [G], cytosine [C], adenine [A] and thymine [T]) inserted into a model 1-nm Ag-Ag nanogap are calculated. The magnitudes of the calculated conductance and current are ordered in the following hierarchies: gA>gG>gC>gT and IG>IA>IT>IC correspondingly. The new distinguishing parameter for the nucleobase identification is proposed, namely, the onset bias magnitude. Nucleobases exhibit the following hierarchy with respect to this parameter: Vonset(A)