DNA has a well-defined structural transition -- the denaturation of its double-stranded form into two single-strands -- that strongly affects its thermal transport properties. We show that, according to a widely implemented model for DNA denaturation, one can engineer DNA "heattronic" devices that have a rapidly increasing thermal conductance over a narrow temperature range across the denaturation transition (~ 350K ). The origin of the switching behavior is the release of the base pairs from their confining potential as DNA denatures, which both softens the lattice and suppresses nonlinear effects , increasing the conductance. Most importantly, we demonstrate that DNA nanojunctions have a broad range of thermal tunability due to varying the sequence and length, and exploit the underlying nonlinear behavior. We discuss the role of disorder in the base sequence, as well as the relation to genomic DNA. These results set the basis for developing thermal devices out of materials with nonlinear structural dynamics, as well as understanding the underlying mechanisms of DNA denaturation.
DNA has a well-defined structural transition - the denaturation of its double-stranded form into two single strands - that strongly affects its thermal transport properties. We show that, according to a widely implemented model for DNA denaturation, one can engineer DNA "heattronic" devices that have a rapidly increasing thermal conductance over a narrow temperature range across the denaturation transition (~ 350 K ). The origin of the switching behavior is the release of the base pairs from their confining potential as DNA denatures, which both softens the lattice and suppresses nonlinear effects and thus increases the thermal conductance. Most importantly, we demonstrate that DNA nanojunctions have a broad range of thermal tunability due to varying the sequence and length, and exploit the underlying nonlinear behavior. We discuss the role of disorder in the base sequence, as well as the relation to genomic DNA. These results set the basis for developing thermal devices out of materials with nonlinear structural dynamics, as well as understanding the underlying mechanisms of DNA denaturation.
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