Translocation events in a single-walled carbon nanotube

Abstract

Translocation of DNA oligomers through a single-walled carbon nanotube wasdemonstrated recently. Translocation events are accompanied by giant current pulses, theorigin of which remains obscure. Here, we show that the introduction of a nucleotide,guanosine triphosphate, alone into the input reservoir of a carbon nanotube nanofluidicdevice also gives giant current pulses. Taken together with data on oligomer translocation,these new results suggest that the pulse width has a nonlinear, power-law dependence onthe number of nucleotides in a DNA molecule. We have also measured the time forthe onset of DNA translocation pulses after bias reversal, finding that the timefor the onset of translocation is directly proportional to the period of the biasreversal.