Science Daily November 2, 2021
single-molecule conductance falls off sharply with the length of the molecule so that only extremely short stretches of DNA are useful for electrical measurements. Researchers in Japan achieved an unconventionally high conductivity with a long DNA molecule-based junction in a “zipper” configuration that also shows a remarkable self-restoring ability under electrical failure. The team used a 10-mer and a 90-mer DNA strand to form a zipper-like structure and attached them to either a gold surface or to the metal tip of a scanning tunneling microscope. The separation between the tip and the surface constituted the “nanogap” that was modified with the zipper DNA. The tunneling current across this nanogap showed high conductance. The simulations showed that the single-molecule junction could restore itself i.e., go from “unzipped” to “zipped,” spontaneously after an electrical failure that is – the single-molecule junction was both resilient and easily reproducible. The work shows that single-molecule electronics could likely revolutionize nanobiotechnology, medicine, and related fields…read more. Open Access TECHNICAL ARTICLEÂ
Single-molecule junction of DNA zipper. Credit: Nature Communications volume 12, Article number: 5762 (2021)Â