A simple method to alter the binding specificity of DNA-coated colloids that crystallize

DNA-coated colloids can crystallize into a multitude of lattices, ranging from face-centered cubic to diamond, opening avenues to producing structures with useful photonic properties. The potential design space of DNA-coated colloids is large, but its exploration is hampered by a reliance on chemically modified DNA that is slow and expensive to commercially synthesize. Here we introduce a method to controllably tailor the sequences of DNA-coated particles by covalently appending new sequence domains onto the DNA grafted to colloidal particles. The tailored particles crystallize as readily and at the same temperature as those produced via direct chemical synthesis, making them suitable for self-assembly. Moreover, we show that particles coated with a single sequence can be converted into a variety of building blocks with differing specificities by appending different DNA sequences to them. This method will make it practical to identify optimal and complex particle sequence designs and paves the way to programming the assembly kinetics of DNA-coated colloids.