Shaping Functional Materials with DNA Frameworks

Designing and engineering materials into particular shapes and/or structural arrangements paves the way to advanced materials properties. Top-down micro/nano fabrication can achieve patterns with sub-10 nm precision; however, challenges and limitations in material versatility, dynamic arrangement, biocompatibility, and high cost still exist. Bottom-up methods, however, allow elements to grow/assemble into well-defined structures. Along with the prosperity in the field of structural DNA nanotechnology, DNA as a mature programmable polymer has been fascinating in organizing materials into complex nanostructures. In this review article, we briefly introduce key achievements of DNA nanotechnology, summarize the current progress of DNA nanostructure-based material programming and molding, and discuss the limitations and challenges of this challenging field.