Acta Phys. -Chim. Sin. ›› 2013, Vol. 29 ›› Issue (02): 250-254.doi: 10.3866/PKU.WHXB201211141

• THEORETICAL AND COMPUTATIONAL CHEMISTRY • Previous Articles     Next Articles

First-Principles Study of Graphene-Based Biomolecular Sensor

ZOU Hui1, NI Xiang1, PENG Sheng-Lin1, OUYANG Jun1, CHEN Yu1, OUYANG Fang-Ping1,2   

  1. 1 School of Physics and Electronics, Central South University, Changsha 410083, P. R. China;
    2 Powder Metallurgy Research Institute, and State Key Laboratory of Powder Metallurgy, Changsha 410083, P. R. China
  • Received:2012-09-08 Revised:2012-11-13 Published:2013-01-14
  • Supported by:

    The project was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (51272291, 21103232, 11104356), Natural Science Foundation of Hunan Province, China, (11JJ4001), China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2012M511399), Science and Technology Program of Hunan Province, China (2012RSJ4009), and Postdoctoral Seience Foundation of Central South University, China (201202025).

Abstract:

First-principles calculations were applied to design and study the electron transport behavior of a biomolecular sensor with graphene-based electrodes. It is shown that the designed biosensor is capable of distinguishing different nucleotide molecules such as cytosine, methylcytosine, and hydroxymethylcytosine. The current was seen to change by nearly one order of magnitude, while molecules passed through the device individually. The resolution capacity of the present device was primarily determined by the interactions and specific configurations of two adjacent single-stranded desoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) molecules and their specific configurations. This graphene-based biosensor was proved to be effective and efficient in detecting and distinguishing different DNA molecules, which provides a new potential method to pinpoint exactly varietal base molecules in DNAchains for the genetic information.

Key words: First-principles, Graphene, Methylcytosine, Hydroxymethylcytosine, Transverse conductance