10.1021/jacs.7b08246.s001
Lee E. Korshoj
Lee E.
Korshoj
Sepideh Afsari
Sepideh
Afsari
Anushree Chatterjee
Anushree
Chatterjee
Prashant Nagpal
Prashant
Nagpal
Conformational
Smear Characterization and Binning
of Single-Molecule Conductance Measurements for Enhanced Molecular
Recognition
American Chemical Society
2017
Conformational Smear Characterization
nanoelectronic DNA sequencing
quantum point contact measurements
Several high-throughput nanoelectronic methods
single-molecule conductance
smear measurements
DNA macromolecules
DNA nucleotides
Single-Molecule Conductance Measurements
scanning tunneling
smear parameter
conductance measurements
Enhanced Molecular Recognition Electronic conduction
smear characterization
smear analysis
DNA sequencing
charge transport
nanoscale electrodes
entropic factors
sequencing methods
electronics applications
force microscopy
binning measurements
DNA nucleotide recognition
SCRIB
single-molecule conductance measurements
2017-10-10 00:00:00
Journal contribution
https://acs.figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/Conformational_Smear_Characterization_and_Binning_of_Single-Molecule_Conductance_Measurements_for_Enhanced_Molecular_Recognition/5518834
Electronic conduction or charge transport
through single molecules
depends primarily on molecular structure and anchoring groups and
forms the basis for a wide range of studies from molecular electronics
to DNA sequencing. Several high-throughput nanoelectronic methods
such as mechanical break junctions, nanopores, conductive atomic force
microscopy, scanning tunneling break junctions, and static nanoscale
electrodes are often used for measuring single-molecule conductance.
In these measurements, “smearing” due to conformational
changes and other entropic factors leads to large variances in the
observed molecular conductance, especially in individual measurements.
Here, we show a method for characterizing smear in single-molecule
conductance measurements and demonstrate how binning measurements
according to smear can significantly enhance the use of individual
conductance measurements for molecular recognition. Using quantum
point contact measurements on single nucleotides within DNA macromolecules,
we demonstrate that the distance over which molecular junctions are
maintained is a measure of smear, and the resulting variance in unbiased
single measurements depends on this smear parameter. Our ability to
identify individual DNA nucleotides at 20× coverage increases
from 81.3% accuracy without smear analysis to 93.9% with smear characterization
and binning (SCRIB). Furthermore, merely 7 conductance measurements
(7× coverage) are needed to achieve 97.8% accuracy for DNA nucleotide
recognition when only low molecular smear measurements are used, which
represents a significant improvement over contemporary sequencing
methods. These results have important implications in a broad range
of molecular electronics applications from designing robust molecular
switches to nanoelectronic DNA sequencing.