Spintronic Memristor as Interface Between DNA and Solid State Devices

Abstract

Recently biomolecular computing platforms have been widely investigated with great potentials in both biomedical research and practices, such as using molecular structures of DNA to present the data bits and to operate the logic. Emerging CMOS/molecular hybrid (CMOL) circuitry demonstrates many overwhelming advantages compared with pure biomolecular circuitry, including the design flexibility and compatibility with the traditional CMOS process. In this work, spintronic devices are utilized to detect the spatial information of DNA by translating the magnetic signals associated with the DNA pieces to electrical signals. The physical mechanisms and sensing performances of various magnetic sensor structures are discussed and evaluated, including giant magneto-resistance (GMR) spin valve sensors, tunnel magneto-resistance (TMR) sensors and our newly proposed spintronic GMR/TMR memristor sensors. A on-chip readout scheme is also proposed with a telecommunication method-frequency division multiplexing (FDM) technique to efficiently transmit useful information and filtrate the noise which could achieve high SNR up to 70 dB. The new approach can be adopted as not only the interface between the DNA structure and CMOS circuitry, but also a promising sensing mechanism in the DNA hybridization detection technique.