Persistence Pays Off

Constructing the next generation of optical, electronic, and magnetic materials requires creating organized, defect-free structures on a nanoscale. In his perspective, Ober discusses new work ( Belcher et al.) that merges biomolecular engineering with materials science to create a nanocomposite of bacteriophage and ZnS nanoparticles. The nanoparticles occupy narrow layers periodically spaced by long viral rods.