title: Tunable graphene quantum point contact transistor for DNA detection and characterization.
abstract: A graphene membrane conductor containing a nanopore in a quantum point contact geometry is a promising candidate to sense, and potentially sequence, DNA molecules translocating through the nanopore. Within this geometry, the shape, size, and position of the nanopore as well as the edge configuration influences the membrane conductance caused by the electrostatic interaction between the DNA nucleotides and the nanopore edge. It is shown that the graphene conductance variations resulting from DNA translocation can be enhanced by choosing a particular geometry as well as by modulating the graphene Fermi energy, which demonstrates the ability to detect conformational transformations of a double-stranded DNA, as well as the passage of individual base pairs of a single-stranded DNA molecule through the nanopore.
authors.affiliation: Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801, USA. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801, USA.
authors.forename: Anuj
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Girdhar
authors.forename: Chaitanya
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Sathe
authors.forename: Klaus
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Schulten
authors.forename: Jean-Pierre
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Leburton
mesh_terms: D004247:DNA / Q000737:chemistry / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D004277:DNA, Single-Stranded / Q000737:chemistry / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D006108:Graphite / Q000737:chemistry*; D058608:Nanopores; D045663:Quantum Dots; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA
chemical_list: D004277:DNA, Single-Stranded; D006108:Graphite; D004247:DNA