AVS 52nd International Symposium
    Electronic Materials and Processing Tuesday Sessions
       Session EM-TuP

Paper EM-TuP12
Field Effect Properties of M-DNA Molecules Observed by Changing Gate Voltages

Tuesday, November 1, 2005, 4:00 pm, Room Exhibit Hall C&D

Session: Electronic Materials and Processing Poster Session
Presenter: J.M. Lee, Sungkyunkwan University, Korea
Authors: J.M. Lee, Sungkyunkwan University, Korea
Y.-H. Roh, Sungkyunkwan University, Korea
Correspondent: Click to Email
Recent studies on the electrical conduction of the deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) strands reveal that they may act as semiconductor materials, suggesting that they might be used for the nano-electronic devices in the future. Consequently, on-going research efforts have been focused on ways to find the conduction properties of many different types of DNA strands. In addition, several research groups reported that the metallic nano-wires can be formed by utilizing the DNA molecules as templates. One of the examples is the formation of M-DNA (i.e., metallic DNA). M-DNA is a complex form of DNA molecules with the divalent metallic ions (i.e., Zn@super 2+@) replacing the imino proton of every base pair. Because of containing metallic ions at DNA helix, it has been reported that the current-voltage characteristic of M-DNA attached on the two-terminal electrode represents the metallic properties, although I-V data failed to show the ohmic property. In this work, we investigated the I-V characteristics of M-DNA molecules attached on the three-terminal electrode. We monitored the current variation measured between source and drain by sweeping the gate voltage. It has been reported that M-DNA can be made using poly(dA)-poly(dT), poly(dG)-poly(dC) or lambda DNA. For the current work, we report the experimental results obtained from M-DNA prepared using lambda DNA. Once M-DNA molecules were trapped on the top electrode, the sample chamber was evacuated to minimize the humidity effects on the measurement of I-V characteristics. We found that the current of M-DNA molecules measured between source and drain (I@sub DS@) increases as the gate voltage increases, although the degree of current modulation obtained through M-DNA was less than that of lambda DNA. Since the I@sub DS@ data obtained in this work were collected in vacuum, we suggest that the I@sub DS@ modulation caused by the gate voltage is due to the field effect.