Interaction of double-stranded DNA inside single-walled carbon nanotubes

Abstract

Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) is the genetic material for all living organisms, and as a nanostructure offers the means to create novel nanoscale devices. In this paper, we investigate the interaction of deoxyribonucleic acid inside single-walled carbon nanotubes. Using classical applied mathematical modeling, we derive explicit analytical expressions for the encapsulation of DNA inside single-walled carbon nanotubes. We adopt the 6–12 Lennard–Jones potential function together with the continuous approach to determine the preferred minimum energy position of the dsDNA molecule inside a single-walled carbon nanotube, so as to predict its location with reference to the cross-section of the carbon nanotube. An analytical expression is obtained in terms of hypergeometric functions which provides a computationally rapid procedure to determine critical numerical values. We observe that the double-strand DNA can be encapsulated inside a single-walled carbon nanotube with a radius larger than 12.30 Å, and we show that the optimal single-walled carbon nanotube to enclose a double-stranded DNA has radius 12.8 Å.