Plasmonic nanoantennas provide an opportunity to manipulate light within nanoscale volumes. One approach to creating plasmonic antennas is to organize metal colloids to produce assemblies where coupled localize surface plasmons lead to enhanced optical near fields. Although synthesis of metal colloids is straight forward due to the extensive number of methodologies that have been developed, controlled organization of the particles remains a challenge.

Abstract: I will present molecular dynamics computer simulations of several examples of conformational transitions that nucleic acids and their complexes undergo upon the application of external forces and/or torques: (1) DNA supercoil relaxation by topoisomerases, (2) the condensation of DNA by  dendrimers and (3) DNA ejection from viruses.