Photochemical Synthesis of Electrically Conductive CdS Nanowires on DNA Scaffolds

Electrically conductive CdS nanowires are fabricated via a photochemical synthesis route using DNA as a scaffold. The nanowires are found to be several micrometers long and are either 40 – 50 nm in diameter or 70 – 80 in diameter when synthesized using solution‐suspended or immobilized DNA, respectively. Various characterization methods showed that the wires consist of one continuous phase and exhibit Ohmic behavior similar to electrodes. The one‐step process described herein does not perturb the conformation of the DNA chain and may be extended to the synthesis of other semiconducting composite nanoparticles.