Van der Waals induced molecular recognition of canonical DNA nucleobases on a 2D GaS monolayer

Abstract

In the present study, we systematically investigated the adsorption mechanism of canonical DNA nucleobases and their two nucleobase pairs on a single-layer gallium sulfide (GaS) substrate using DFT+D3 methods. The GaS substrate has chemical interactions with molecules 0.02 |e| 0.11 |e| from molecules to the monolayer GaS surface. Due to the chemical interactions of adenine, cytosine, guanine, and thymine on the monolayer GaS surface, the work function is decreased by 0.69, 0.60, 0.97, and 0.20 eV, respectively. It is displayed that the bandgap of the monolayer GaS sheet can be significantly affected as induced molecular electronic states tend to appear near the Fermi level region due to chemical and physisorption mechanism. We have also investigated the transport properties of DNA nucleobases, namely, AT and GC pair molecules on the GaS surface, which shows significant reduction in the zero-bias transmission spectra. Moreover, with and without DNA nucleobases, namely, AT and GC pair molecules’ absorptions on the GaS surface, clearly expressed in terms of distinct current signals, can be observed as ON and OFF states for this device. The distinctive nucleobase adsorption energies and different I–V responses may serve as potential probes for the selective detection of nucleobase molecules in imminent DNA sequencing applications based on a monolayer GaS surface.