Title |
Molecular rectifier composed of DNA with high rectification ratio enabled by intercalation
|
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Published in |
Nature Chemistry, April 2016
|
DOI | 10.1038/nchem.2480 |
Pubmed ID | |
Authors |
Cunlan Guo, Kun Wang, Elinor Zerah-Harush, Joseph Hamill, Bin Wang, Yonatan Dubi, Bingqian Xu |
Abstract |
The predictability, diversity and programmability of DNA make it a leading candidate for the design of functional electronic devices that use single molecules, yet its electron transport properties have not been fully elucidated. This is primarily because of a poor understanding of how the structure of DNA determines its electron transport. Here, we demonstrate a DNA-based molecular rectifier constructed by site-specific intercalation of small molecules (coralyne) into a custom-designed 11-base-pair DNA duplex. Measured current-voltage curves of the DNA-coralyne molecular junction show unexpectedly large rectification with a rectification ratio of about 15 at 1.1 V, a counter-intuitive finding considering the seemingly symmetrical molecular structure of the junction. A non-equilibrium Green's function-based model-parameterized by density functional theory calculations-revealed that the coralyne-induced spatial asymmetry in the electron state distribution caused the observed rectification. This inherent asymmetry leads to changes in the coupling of the molecular HOMO-1 level to the electrodes when an external voltage is applied, resulting in an asymmetric change in transmission. |
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