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Type: Text × Subject: Characterization techniques ×

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    Electrostatically PEGylated DNA enables salt-free hybridization in water
    (Cambridge : RSC, 2019) Chakraborty, Gurudas; Balinin, Konstantin; Portale, Giuseppe; Loznik, Mark; Polushkin, Evgeny; Weil, Tanja; Herrmann, Andreas
    Chemically modified nucleic acids have long served as a very important class of bio-hybrid structures. In particular, the modification with PEG has advanced the scope and performance of oligonucleotides in materials science, catalysis and therapeutics. Most of the applications involving pristine or modified DNA rely on the potential of DNA to form a double-stranded structure. However, a substantial requirement for metal-cations to achieve hybridization has restricted the range of applications. To extend the applicability of DNA in salt-free or low ionic strength aqueous medium, we introduce noncovalent DNA-PEG constructs that allow canonical base-pairing between individually PEGylated complementary strands resulting in a double-stranded structure in salt-free aqueous medium. This method relies on grafting of amino-terminated PEG polymers electrostatically onto the backbone of DNA, which results in the formation of a PEG-envelope. The specific charge interaction of PEG molecules with DNA, absolute absence of metal ions within the PEGylated DNA molecules and formation of a double helix that is significantly more stable than the duplex in an ionic buffer have been unequivocally demonstrated using multiple independent characterization techniques. This journal is © The Royal Society of Chemistry.
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    Study on the Properties of High Purity Germanium Crystals
    (Bristol : IOP Publ., 2015) Yang, G.; Mei, H.; Guan, Y.T.; Wang, G.J.; Mei, D.M.; Irmscher, K.
    In the crystal growth lab of South Dakota University, we are growing high purity germanium (HPGe) crystals and using the grown crystals to make radiation detectors. As the detector grade HPGe crystals, they have to meet two critical requirements: an impurity level of ∼109 to 10 atoms /cm3 and a dislocation density in the range of ∼102 to 104 / cm3. In the present work, we have used the following four characterization techniques to investigate the properties of the grown crystals. First of all, an x-ray diffraction method was used to determine crystal orientation. Secondly, the van der Pauw Hall effect measurement was used to measure the electrical properties. Thirdly, a photo-thermal ionization spectroscopy (PTIS) was used to identify what the impurity atoms are in the crystal. Lastly, an optical microscope observation was used to measure dislocation density in the crystal. All of these characterization techniques have provided great helps to our crystal activities.