| AVS 58th Annual International Symposium and Exhibition | |
| Nanometer-scale Science and Technology Division | Thursday Sessions |
| Session NS-ThA |
| Session: | Biological Nanomaterials |
| Presenter: | Yunhao Cao, Vanderbilt University |
| Authors: | Y. Cao, Vanderbilt University Y. Xu, Vanderbilt University |
| Correspondent: | Click to Email |
Carbon nanotube-biomolecule hybrids have emerged as one of the most promising materials for biological and biomedical applications, such as biosensors, drug delivery, and imaging. Recently, Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have shown the ability to protect bound DNA cargos from enzymatic cleavage both during and after delivery into cells. This ability may result from the interaction between CNTs and DNA, which makes DNA unrecognizable to enzyme binding pockets. Therefore, it is important to study the interaction between CNTs and DNA. In this work, we have developed a nanoscale optoelectronic probing system by combining highly-sensitive CNT transistors with advanced dual-trap optical tweezers to investigate the interaction between CNTs and DNA at the single-molecule level. We tightly bonded both ends of a DNA molecule with microbeads, which could be held and manipulated by optical tweezers. When the DNA molecule was moved close to a suspended CNT transistor, the negative charge from the DNA molecule would change the local electrostatic environment around the CNT. Through scanning photocurrent measurements, the electrical coupling between individual DNA molecules and CNTs could be investigated.