Optoelectronic studies on heterocyclic bases of deoxyribonucleic acid for DNA photonics

Abstract

The optoelectronics study of large molecules, particularly π-stacking molecules, such as DNA is really an extremely difficult task. We perform first electronic structure calculations on the heterocyclic bases of 2'-deoxyribonucleic acid based on Lorentz-Fresnel dispersion theory. In the UV-VIS range of spectrum, many of the optoelectronic parameters for DNA four bases namely adenine, guanine, cytosine and thymine are calculated and discussed. The results demonstrate that adenine has the highest hyperpolarizability, whereas thymine has the lowest hyperpolarizability. Cytosine has the lower average oscillator energy and the higher lattice energy. Thymine infers the most stable nucleic base with the lower phonon energy. Thymine also has the highest average oscillator energy and the lower lattice energy. Moreover, the four nucleic acid bases have large band gap energies less than 5 eV with a semiconducting behavior. Guanine shows the smallest band gap and the highest Fermi level energy, whereas adenine elucidates the highest band gap energy.