DNA Sequencing with Single-Stranded DNA Rectification in a Nanogap Gated by N-Terminated Carbon Nanotube Electrodes

Fast, reliable, and inexpensive DNA sequencing is an important pursuit in healthcare, especially in personalized medicine with possible deep societal impacts. Despite significant progress in various nanopore-based sequencing configurations, challenges that remain in resolution and chromosome-size-long readout call for new approaches. Here we found strong rectification in the transversal current during single-stranded DNA translocation through a nanopore with side-embedded N-terminated carbon nanotube electrodes. Employing density functional theory and nonequilibrium Green’s function formalisms, we show that the rectifying ratio (response to square pulses of alternating bias) bears high nucleobase specificity. Rectification arises because of bias-dependent resistance asymmetry on the deoxyribonucleotide–electrode interfaces. The asymmetry induces molecular charging and highest occupied molecular orbital pinning to the electrochemical potential of one of the electrodes, assisted by an in-gap electric-field effect caused by dipoles at the terminated electrode ends. We propose the rectifying ratio, due to its order-of-magnitude-difference nucleobase selectivity and robustness to electrode-molecule orientation, as a promising readout quantifier for single-base resolution and chromosome-size-long single-read DNA sequencing. The proposed configurations are within experimental reach from the viewpoint of both nanofabrication and small current measurement.