Fig. 1.

Selective on-origami DNA condensation and metallization. a Illustration of condensation and subsequent site-specific metal plating processes for fabricating a digit 8 pattern on a single-origami breadboard with a size of 100 × 70 nm². b AFM images of metalized digit 8 patterns constructed with different Cu²⁺ concentrations. Scale bar: 50 nm. c Tomographic measurements of cross-sectional areas. Tomography images (showing red masks on original AFM images) of origami substrates (cross-sections at 1 nm height) and metallized areas (cross-sections at 3 nm height) from typical samples. Scale bar: 100 nm. d Normalized occupancy ratios of the areas on origami at different heights of cross-sections obtained from tomography analysis (left) of the patterns showing in (b). The size of the origami substrate (measured from the cross-sectional area at 1 nm—half the original origami height) is represented with 100%. Metallized area proportions with different Cu²⁺ concentrations obtained from the normalized occupancy data at 3 nm height (1 nm above from the origami substrate) (right). e Geometry-minimized structure of Cu-G and Cu-C complexes obtained from quantum mechanical calculations.