Results
Modified tiny hydrogen-terminated diamond structures, known as diamondoids, show a high efficiency in sensing DNA molecules. These diamond cages, as recently proposed, could offer functionalization possibilities for gold junction electrodes. In this investigation, we report on diamondoid-functionalized electrodes, showing that such a device would have a high potential in sensing and sequencing DNA. The smallest diamondoid including an amine modification was chosen for the functionalization. In this investigation, we report on the quantum tunneling signals across diamondoid-functionalized Au (111) electrodes. Our work is based on quantum-transport calculations and predict the expected signals arising from different DNA units within the break junctions. Different gating voltages are proposed in order to tune the sensitivity of the functionalized electrodes with respect to specific nucleotides. The relation of this sensitivity to the coupling or decoupling of the electrodes is discussed. Our results also shed light on the sensing capability of such a device in distinguishing the DNA nucleotides, in their natural and mutated forms.
Nanogaps functionalized with small diamond-like particles, diamondoids, have been shown to effectively distinguish between different DNA nucleotides. Here, we focus on the detection of mutations and epigenetic markers using such devices. Based on quantum mechanical simulations within the density functional theory approach coupled with the non-equilibrium Green’s function scheme, we provide deeper insight into the inherent differences in detecting modified nucleotides. Our results strongly underline the influence of the type of functionalization molecule of the nanogap, as well its conformational details within the nanogap, on the sensing efficiency of the device. The electronic features for the mutations and epigenetic markers are compared to those for the respective canonical nucleotides that are detected by different devices. The calculations directly correlate the structural and electronic properties of the different nucleotides with the electronic transmission across the diamondoid-based device. The latter was found to be controlled by the functionalizing molecule and its binding to the nucleotides. We have reported on the direct connection of these characteristics to the sensitivity of the diamondoid-functionalized nanogaps, which could eventually be embedded in a nanopore device, and discuss the implications for DNA sensing.