title: Flexoelectric origin of nanomechanic deflection in DNA-microcantilever system.
abstract: The membrane theory is used to study the recently observed nanomechanical bending of cantilevers, which have processed biomolecular adsorption or biochemical reactions. To be different from entropy-controlling bending mechanism discussed before, we propose that the flexoelectric effect induces cantilever bending. With the introduction of flexoelectric spontaneous curvature, the relation between the bending and biopolymer character is constructed by a simple analytical formula. The cantilever motion induced by adsorption of single-strand DNA and DNA hybridization reaction is quantified analytically and our results show good agreement with experiments.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Theoretical Physics, The Chinese Academy of Sciences, P.O. Box 2735, 100080, Beijing, People's Republic of China. liufei@itp.ac.cn
authors.forename: Fei
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Yong
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Zhong can
authors.initials: Zc
authors.lastname: Ou-Yang
mesh_terms: D000327:Adsorption; D015374:Biosensing Techniques / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods*; D003198:Computer Simulation; D004247:DNA / Q000032:analysis* / Q000737:chemistry*; D015342:DNA Probes / Q000032:analysis / Q000737:chemistry; D004277:DNA, Single-Stranded / Q000032:analysis / Q000737:chemistry; D004548:Elasticity; D019544:Equipment Failure Analysis; D008567:Membranes, Artificial; D008956:Models, Chemical; D009038:Motion; D036103:Nanotechnology / Q000379:methods*; D013314:Stress, Mechanical
chemical_list: D015342:DNA Probes; D004277:DNA, Single-Stranded; D008567:Membranes, Artificial; D004247:DNA