DNA used as a template for nanolithography

**DNA is one of the most popular building blocks of nanotechnology and is commonly used to construct ordered nanoscale structures with controlled architectures. For the most part, DNA is looked upon as a promising building block for fabricating microelectronic circuits from the bottom up.** Now a team of researchers at Young propose the marriage of DNA self-assembly with standard microfabrication and lithography tools to form features such as **nanochannels, nanowires, and nanoscale trenches**. This discovery may open up new avenues for nanofabrication at dimensions not accessible by conventional optical lithography. Adam Woolley and Héctor Becerril have developed a method to use DNA molecules as templates to define patterns on substrates. The researchers deposit metal films over DNA molecules aligned on a substrate. The DNA molecules essentially act as nanostencils to define sub-10-nm-sized patterns on the substrate. The researchers call this process “DNA shadow nanolithography” because the metal film is deposited at an angle and the shadow cast by the **DNA molecules** defines the dimensions of the features on the substrate. "Source":[ http://www.physorg.com/news107775692.html]

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