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Influence of the Environment and Probes on Rapid DNA Sequencing via Transverse Electronic Transport

Johan Lagerqvist ^*, Michael Zwolak  and Massimiliano Di Ventra ^*

^* Department of Physics, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, California; and Physics Department, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California

Correspondence: Address reprint requests to Massimiliano Di Ventra, E-mail: diventra{at}physics.ucsd.edu.

We study theoretically the feasibility of using transverse electronic transport within a nanopore for rapid DNA sequencing. Specifically, we examine the effects of the environment and detection probes on the distinguishability of the DNA bases. We find that the intrinsic measurement bandwidth of the electrodes helps the detection of single bases by averaging over the current distributions of each base. We also find that although the overall magnitude of the current may change dramatically with different detection conditions, the intrinsic distinguishability of the bases is not significantly affected by pore size and transverse field strength. The latter is the result of very effective stabilization of the DNA by the transverse field induced by the probes, so long as that field is much larger than the field that drives DNA through the pore. In addition, the ions and water together effectively screen the charge on the nucleotides, so that the electron states participating in the transport properties of the latter ones resemble those of the uncharged species. Finally, water in the environment has negligible direct influence on the transverse electrical current.