Characterizing the nucleation and crystal growth of DNA origami nanoparticles

DNA origami is a powerful technology to manipulate various self-assembled structures by programming the specific interactions and complex shapes of nanoscale subunits. Though much effort has focused on controlling the final structures of different self-assembled crystal phases, studying their growth dynamics remains challenging due to the fact that the subunits are much smaller than the wavelength of visible light. In this talk, I will describe our experimental approach to quantifying the nucleation and growth of crystals formed from octahedral DNA origami nanoparticles.In particular, we study crystallization of DNA origami confined to monodisperse water-in-oil droplets made via microfluidics. Inside the droplets, the nucleation and crystal growth are monitored as a function of time to extract nucleation rates and growth laws despite the fact that we lack single-particle resolution. We use the same platform to compare the growth dynamics of different crystal symmetries that can be assembled from the same subunits by changing the aqueous conditions. We expect that these results will advance the understanding of the dynamics and physical properties of nucleation and crystal growth of nanometer-size subunits.