Fig. 3

Autonomous plasmonic nanoclock. a Schematic of the rotary plasmonic nanoclock for autonomous rotation. The main DNA origami structure is taken from the stepwise plasmonic nanoclock design with modifications. The feet are two 8–17 DNAzyme strands (green) extended from the two ends of the bundle. RNA substrates (purple) are assembled around the ring track as footholds. Upper (black) and lower (black-red) locking strands are extended from the bundle and fh₁, fh_1′, respectively, to fix the rotor at starting position 1-1′. b Working principle of the autonomous rotation powered by DNAzyme-RNA interactions in the presence of Mg²⁺.