Silicene as a new ultrafast DNA sequencing device

Abstract

Silicene, a hexagonal buckled 2-D allotrope of silicon, shows potential as a platform for numerous new applications, and may allow for easier integration with existing silicon-based microelectronics than graphene. Here, we show that silicene could function as an ultrafast electrical DNA sequencing device. We investigated the stability of this novel nano-bio system, its electronic properties and the pronounced effects on the transverse electronic transport, i.e., changes in the transmission and the conductance caused by adsorption of each nucleobase, explored by us through the non-equilibrium Green's function method. Intriguingly, despite the relatively weak interaction between nucleobases and silicene, significant changes in the transmittance at zero bias are predicted by us, in particular for the two nucleobases cytosine and guanine. Our findings suggest that silicene could be utilized as an integrated-circuit biosensor as part of a lab-on-a-chip device for DNA sequencing.