From biology to circuitry: a review of DNA and other biomaterials as templates for nanoelectronic systems

Abstract

Bio-templated nanomaterial fabrication offers a novel and potentially low-cost approach for creating advanced electronic devices. By utilizing biomolecular templates, such as viruses, bacteria, carbohydrates, proteins, lipids, or nucleic acids, complex structures are formed through self-assembly, achieving control even at the nanometer scale. DNA, and DNA origami especially, stand out due to their programmability, self-assembly, and customizability, enabling the creation of sophisticated designs with applications in nanoelectronics. Viruses, particularly M13, have been employed as templates for creating devices, sensors, and materials. Additionally, bacteria, carbohydrates, polypeptides, and lipids exhibit promising potential for fabricating bioelectronic devices with biocompatibility and self-repairing functionality. Accompanying these significant advancements, challenges remain related to scalability, stability, and performance. This review provides an overview of recent developments in bio-templated nanoelectronics and highlights future research directions for improving electronic device fabrication through biological materials. We further present a comprehensive summary of the key advancements achieved in our laboratory over the past two decades, in utilization of DNA templates for the assembly of electronic components, with an emphasis on the design, assembly, and functionalization of DNA-based architectures.