Photoinduced Silver Nanoparticles/Nanorings on Plasmid DNA Scaffolds

Biological scaffolds are being actively explored for the synthesis of nanomaterials with novel structures and unexpected properties. Toroidal plasmid DNA separated from the Bacillus host is applied as a sacrificial mold for the synthesis of silver nanoparticles and nanorings. The photoirradiation method is applied to reduce AgI on the plasmid. The nanoparticles are obtained by varying the concentration of the AgI ion solution and the exposure time of the plasmidAgI complex under UV light at 254 nm and room temperature. It is found that the plasmid serves not only as a template but also as a reductant to drive the silver nucleation and deposition. The resulting nanoparticles have a face-centered cubic (fcc) crystal structure and 2030 nm average diameter. The detailed mechanism is discussed, and other metals or alloys could also be synthesized with this method.