Electronic Conduction in Short DNA Wires

Abstract

A strict method is used to calculate the current-voltage characteristics of a double-stranded DNA. A more reliable model considering the electrostatic potential drop along an individual DNA molecular wire between the contacts is considered and the corresponding Green's Function is obtained analytically using Generating Function method, which avoids difficult numerical evaluations. The obtained results indicate that the electrostatic drop along the wire always increases the conductor beyond the threshold than without considering it, which is in agreement with recent experiments. The present method can also be used to calculate the current-voltage characteristics for other molecular wires of arbitrary length.