Contents: (Small 4/2014)

Carbon NanotubesThe DNA sequencing approach based on the quantum-mechanical electron tunneling has seen considerable advances in recent years, and particularly carbon nanomaterials have emerged as promising candidates to replace metal electrodes.On page 774, Y.-H.Kim and co-workers show theoretically that nitrogen-doped carbon nanotubes (CNTs) electrodes with the ability to act both as electron donors and electron acceptors can achieve a novel DNA sequencing mechanism based on the tunneling that is highly sensitive to the chemical connectivity between the CNT nitrogen doping sites and the functional groups of DNA molecules.