Electrical Characterization of Short DNA Fragments

The electrical transport properties of DNA molecules are important for future molecular electronics applications. We characterized the electrical conductance of single DNA fragments in ambient condition and in buffer solution using a Mechanically Controllable Break Junction (MCBJ) setup which allows us binding molecules between two gold electrodes. We analyzed the electrical conductance of double stranded DNA and G-quadruplex molecules. G-quadruplex molecules consist of four guanine bases arranged in the shape of a square and a cation in the center. The electrical characterization is done by investigating the I-V curves characteristics of the molecules in different conditions.