2015/02/03 by Predrag Krstić, Brian Ashcroft, Stuart Lindsay
Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #Molecular Junctions and Nanostructures #Nanopore and Nanochannel Transport Studies #Spectroscopy and Quantum Chemical Studies
paper · doi:10.1088/0957-4484/26/8/084001
openalex publication_date 2015/02/03 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30
Recognition tunneling (RT) identifies target molecules trapped between tunneling electrodes functionalized with recognition molecules that serve as specific chemical linkages between the metal electrodes and the trapped target molecule. Possible applications include single molecule DNA and protein sequencing. This paper addresses several fundamental aspects of RT by multiscale theory, applying both all-atom and coarse-grained DNA models: (1) we show that the magnitude of the observed currents are consistent with the results of non-equilibrium Green's function calculations carried out on a solvated all-atom model. (2) Brownian fluctuations in hydrogen bond-lengths lead to current spikes that are similar to what is observed experimentally. (3) The frequency characteristics of these fluctuations can be used to identify the trapped molecules with a machine-learning algorithm, giving a theoretical underpinning to this new method of identifying single molecule signals.