Viruses as nanotechnological building blocks for materials and devices
Top-down technologies reach their physical and technical limits on the nanometer scale. Thus, there is a growing interest in bottom-up technologies. Especially viruses (also called virus like particles VLPs) have a high ambition to self-assemble and are therefore interesting building blocks for bottom-up approaches. In this project, genetically modified tomato bushy stunt viruses (TBSV) are used because of their simple (nearly round) structure and advantageous properties. The creation of homogeneous two-dimensional crystal layers of viruses was successful and controllable. These layers will act as base for three-dimensional structures. The main methods to map the self-assembled virus layers are scanning force and scanning electron microscopy. The genetic modification is performed by AlPlanta, Neustadt.