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Categories: advanced materials, nanotechnology

BNL 13-05: Nanoscale Cubes for Giant Amplification of Circular Dichroism Signal of Chiral Molecules

BNL Reference Number: BNL 13-05

Summary

Many organic molecules exhibit “chirality,” or “handed-ness,” meaning that the molecule has a left-handed version and a right-handed version. This property is crucial to the functions of all biological organisms and in a variety of chemical reactions, but its direct structural determination is often difficult. One of the most common methods used to characterize chirality is measurement of the circular dichroism (CD) signature. The signal is sensitive to conformational symmetry of molecules, so it can probe protein folding, drug synthesis, and molecular responses to changes in environment. A practical problem with CD, however, is that most biomolecules only have a significant CD signal in the ultraviolet light range. By modifying our nanoscale cubes with biomolecules, we have been able to induce a signal in the visible light range and to enhance the signal by a factor of about 100 over the original CD signal. This allows us to characterize chiral molecules at very low concentrations and with visible light detection.

Have Questions?

For more information about this technology, contact Kimberley Elcess, (631) 344-4151.