Abstract
Beyond being the repository of genetic information, DNA is playing an increasingly important role as a building block for molecular electronics. Its inherent structural and molecular recognition properties render it a leading candidate for molecular electronics applications. The structural stability, diversity and programmability of DNA provide overwhelming freedom for the design and fabrication of molecular-scale devices. In the past two decades DNA has therefore attracted inordinate amounts of attention in molecular electronics. This review gives a brief survey of recent experimental progress in DNA-based single-molecule electronics with special focus on single-molecule conductance and I–V characteristics of individual DNA molecules. Existing challenges and exciting future opportunities are also discussed.
Highlights
Building an electronic device out of single molecules represents the ultimate miniaturization of active electronic components
Recent experimental advances include the demonstration of conductance switching [11,14,15,16], rectification [9,17,18,19], negative differential conductance [20,21], and other promising phenomena beyond simple electron transport, such as quantum interference [22,23,24], thermoelectricity [25,26], optoelectronics [27,28,29], spintronics [30,31] and Peltier cooling [32]
We aim to provide an overview of recent experimental advances in probing charge transport through various DNA molecules
Summary
Building an electronic device out of single molecules represents the ultimate miniaturization of active electronic components. This can be achieved by imaging the sample surface prior to the electrical measurements. An electron beam with an appropriate energy was used to induce the EBID to regulate the gap size of the CNTs. To bind with CNT electrodes, DNA was modified with amino groups at the two terminals to form an amido group with the carboxylic group on the gapped CNTs. The above-mentioned techniques for creating metal-molecule-metal junctions have been extensively adopted to probe CT properties of individual DNA molecules, including single-molecule conductance and I–V characteristics of DNA. These techniques have been reviewed in several outstanding review papers [49,50,56,61,62], and will not be revisited in detail here
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