Prerna Kabtiyal

Physics Research Building #1130

kabtiyal.1@osu.edu , kabtiyalprerna@gmail.com

Prerna is a graduate student in the Physics department at Ohio State University(OSU), pursuing her PhD in experimental condensed matter physics. She obtained an undergraduate degree in Physics from Delhi University, India followed by a Master of Science in Physics from Indian Institute of Technology, Madras. Thereafter, she joined Ohio State University as a PhD candidate and is currently working on the study of plasmonic and magnetic interactions using optical tweezers.

Area of Research: Plasmonics, Nanomagnetism, Optical Trapping

Current research:

Study of plasmonic and magnetic interactions in DNA origami-nanoparticle composites using optical tweezers.

We study the dynamics of interaction between gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) and magnetic nanoparticles attached to DNA origami-based structures, by pulling on them with dual trap optical tweezers and implementing force spectroscopy. DNA-origami is an efficient, economical and easily implementable technique that allows the formation of DNA based nanostructures through self-assembly. We intend to study the impact of gold/magnetic nanoparticles on the dynamics of DNA and DNA-origami structures, as well as to study the plasmonic and magnetic interactions between closely spaced nanoparticles through nanoparticle-DNA origami composites.