Analytic study of charge tunneling through DNA under dissipation

作者：Yi Juyeon^*

来源：Physical Review B, 2008, 77(19): 193109.

DOI：10.1103/PhysRevB.77.193109

We investigate charge tunneling through the band gap of DNA molecules of homogeneous sequence. We find that the tunneling probability in the presence of energy dissipation linearly decays with molecule length, while a dissipation-free tunneling exponentially decays. For each, two characteristic decay scales emerge, 8 eta(2)/alpha(2) and In alpha. With eta taken as an energy clamping parameter, we obtain the explicit dependence of a on the band structure and charge carrier energy. Those behaviors are also confirmed by numerical computations. Exploiting our results to interpret the recent experiments, we further draw a conjecture on a base (or sequence)-dependent dissipation strength, in relation to preferential occupation of counterions.

• 出版日期2008-5