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Nanopores

Graphene opens up to DNA

Nature Nanotechnology volume 5, pages 697–698 (2010)Cite this article

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It might be possible to sequence DNA by passing the molecule through a small hole in a sheet of graphene.

The nanopores that are found in the membranes of cells have an important role in biology and, along with artificial nanopores fabricated in materials such as silicon nitride, they have also been used to detect single molecules and, in some cases, extract more detailed information such as the size and shape of the molecules1. The capabilities of these systems are influenced by the diameter of the nanopore and also by the thickness of the membrane that contains it. In general, however, these membranes are too thick to be able to probe the local structure of a molecule as it passes through the nanopore. To read the sequence of nucleotides in a DNA molecule, for example, a membrane of sub-nanometre thickness is required.

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Figure 1: Images of nanopores sculpted in graphene by the electron beam of a transmission electron microscope and used in the work of a, Golovchenko and colleagues6, b, Dekker and colleagues7 and c, Drndić and colleagues8.
Figure 2: Translocation of DNA through a graphene nanopore.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Zuzanna S. Siwy and Matthew Davenport are in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Irvine, California 92697, USA. zsiwy@uci.edu,

    Zuzanna S. Siwy & Matthew Davenport

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  1. Zuzanna S. Siwy
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  2. Matthew Davenport
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Siwy, Z., Davenport, M. Graphene opens up to DNA. Nature Nanotech 5, 697–698 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2010.198

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