Charge transport in DNA nanowires connected to carbon nanotubes
DNA is perhaps the worlds most controllable nanowire, with potential applications in nanoelectronics and sensing. However, understanding of its charge transport (CT) properties remains elusive, with experiments reporting a wide range of behaviors from insulating to superconductive. Here, we report extensive first-principle simulations that account for DNA's high flexibility and its native solvent environment. The results show that the CT along the DNA's long axis is strongly dependent on DNA's instantaneous conformation varying over many orders of magnitude. In high CT conformations, delocalized conductive states extending over up to 10 base pairs are found. Their low exponential decay constants further indicate that coherent CT, which is assumed to be active only over 2–3 base pairs in the commonly accepted DNA CT models, can act over much longer length scales. We also identify a simple geometrical rule that predicts CT properties of a given conformation with high accuracy. The effect of mismatched base pairs is also considered: while they decrease conductivities of specific DNA conformations, thermally induced conformational fluctuations wash out this effect. Overall, our results indicate that an immobilized partially dried poly(G)-poly(C) B-DNA is preferable for nanowire applications.