Kinetic study for hopping conduction through DNA molecules

Abstract

Recent experiments indicated that disorder effect in DNA may lead to a transition of the charge transport mechanism from band resonant tunnelling to thermal activated hopping. In this letter, based on Mott's variable-range hopping theory we present a kinetic study for the charge transport properties of DNA molecules. Beyond the conventional argument in large-scale systems, our numerical study for finite-size DNA molecules reveals a number of unique features for (i) the I-V characteristics, (ii) the temperature and length dependence, and (iii) the transition from conducting to insulating behaviors.