arXiv · cond-mat/0611745
Influence of vibrational modes on the electronic properties of DNA
Abstract
We investigate the electron (hole) transport through short double-stranded DNA wires in which the electrons are strongly coupled to the specific vibrational modes (vibrons) of the DNA. We analyze the problem starting from a tight-binding model of DNA, with parameters derived from ab-initio calculations, and describe the dissipative transport by equation-of-motion techniques. For homogeneous DNA sequences like Poly- (Guanine-Cytosine) we find the transport to be quasi-ballistic with an effective density of states which is modified by the electron-vibron coupling. At low temperatures the linear conductance is strongly enhanced, but above the `semiconducting' gap it is affected much less. In contrast, for inhomogeneous (`natural') sequences almost all states are strongly localized, and transport is dominated by dissipative processes. In this case, a non-local electron-vibron coupling influences the conductance in a qualitative and sequence-dependent way.
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Benjamin B. Schmidt, Matthias H. Hettler, Gerd Schön. 2007-03-30. Influence of vibrational modes on the electronic properties of DNA. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevb.75.115125
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