DNA as a Molecular Wire: Distance and Sequence Dependence

Abstract

Functional nanowires and nanoelectronics are sought for their use in next generation integrated circuits, but several challenges limit the use of most nanoscale devices on large scales. DNA has great potential for use as a molecular wire due to high yield synthesis, near-unity purification, and nanoscale self-organization. Nonetheless, a thorough understanding of ground state DNA charge transport (CT) in electronic configurations under biologically relevant conditions, where the fully base-paired, double-helical structure is preserved, is lacking. Here, we explore the fundamentals of CT through double-stranded DNA monolayers on gold by assessing 17 base pair bridges at discrete points with a redox active probe conjugated to a modified thymine. This assessment is performed under temperature-controlled and biologically relevant conditions with cyclic and square wave voltammetry, and redox peaks are analyzed to assess transfer rate and yield. We demonstrate that the yield of transport is strongly tied to the stability of the duplex, linearly correlating with the melting temperature. Transfer rate is found to be temperature-activated and to follow an inverse distance dependence, consistent with a hopping mechanism of transport. These results establish the governing factors of charge transfer speed and throughput in DNA molecular wires for device configurations, guiding subsequent application for nanoscale electronics.

Electronic structure and carrier transfer in B-DNA monomer polymers and dimer polymers: Stationary and time-dependent aspects of a wire model versus an extended ladder model

“…Moreover, although unbiased charge transfer in DNA nearly vanishes after 10 to 20 nm 17,18 , DNA still remains a promising candidate as an electronic component in molecular electronics, e.g. as a short molecular wire 19 . Favoring geometries and base-pair sequences have still to be explored e.g.…”

Collagen-Based Fuel Cell and Its Proton Transfer

“…For example, the electrical properties of deoxyribo-nucleic acid (DNA) How to cite this paper: Matsuo, Y., Ikeda, H., Kawabata, T., Hatori, J. and Oyama, H. [1]- [7]. For example, in the field of electrical devices, the investigations of DNA molecular wire and DNA based materials for switching devices have been carried out [8] [9]. It is also known that the DNA film exhibits proton conductivity in the humidified condition and can be used as the electrolyte of fuel cell [10] [11].…”

Partition-free theory of time-dependent current correlations in nanojunctions in response to an arbitrary time-dependent bias

“…In addition to the speedup in processing power that arises from submicrometer size [2], molecular junctions also enable a massive speedup in device operation due to THz intramolecular transport processes and fast electron traversal time [3]. Subsequent to the initial proposal of molecular rectification in 1974 [4], chemical fabrication techniques have led to the realization of many interesting devices, including molecular wires [5,6], single-electron transistors [7], frequency doublers and detectors [8,9], and switches for fast memory storage [10,11]. In addition, conductance properties of nanostructures subjected to strong time-dependent external fields have been the subject of intense experimental research.…”