Special Issue "Electronic Structure, Carrier Transfer and Transport in Polymers and Biopolymers"
A special issue of Materials (ISSN 1996-1944).
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 August 2022 | Viewed by 3561
Special Issue Editor

Interests: biophysics; spintronics; quantum optics; nanostructures; ab initio calculations
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Today, many members of the scientific community are interested in charge transfer and transport in organic and biological systems such as carbon nanotubes, carbynes, porphyrins, proteins, enzymes, π-conjugated systems, nucleic acids (DNA, RNA), chromophores, to name just a few. Their electronic structure and their charge transfer and transport properties are being studied with the aim to understand their biological functions and their potential applications in nanotechnology. Transport implies the use of electrodes between which electric voltage is applied. Transfer means that the electron or hole, created, e.g., by reduction or oxidation at a specific site, moves to more favorable sites. Usually, a donor and an acceptor are connected at the ends of a system, which acts as a bridge. For example, DNA can be used as a molecular wire for charge transfer and transport. Favoring geometries and base-pair sequences, the use of non-natural bases, isomers and tautomers of the bases, among others, are being investigated. Structural fluctuation is another important factor which influences carrier movement through these systems. Charge transfer is, for example, relevant in DNA damage and repair and in discrimination between pathogenic and nonpathogenic mutations at an early stage. Charge transport can be used to probe DNA of different origin or organisms, mutations, and diseases. Charge transport in damaged DNA and under structural fluctuations has also been investigated.
In this Special Issue of Materials, "Electronic Structure, Carrier Transfer and Transport in Polymers and Biopolymers", researchers are invited to submit their recent work on this and related subjects. We hope that this issue will become a fruitful forum for all of us and other interested colleagues. We welcome full papers, communications, and reviews.Keywords
- charge transfer
- charge transport
- polymers
- biopolymers
- carbon nanotubes
- carbynes
- porphyrins
- proteins
- enzymes
- π-conjugated systems
- nucleic acids
- DNA
- RNA
- chromophores
Planned Papers
The below list represents only planned manuscripts. Some of these manuscripts have not been received by the Editorial Office yet. Papers submitted to MDPI journals are subject to peer-review.
1. Controlling the energy transport along a protein chain
Narmin Sefidkar, Samira Fathizadeh, Fatemeh Nemati, Constantinos Simserides
Energy transport within biological systems is important for biological functions in life cell and for technological applications in molecular motors. Biological systems have very complex dynamic supporting a large number of biochemical and biophysical process. In the current work, we have studied the energy transport along the protein chains. Different factors such as the temperature, salt concentration effect, and the external mechanical drive are examined on the energy flux through the protein chains. It is obtained that the external mechanical load is most effective agent on bioenergy transport within our protein systems. The results can be help to design a functional nano-scaled molecular motor based on energy transport along the protein chains.
2. Charge movement in Helical Biomolecules:A comparison of appropriate tight-binding variants including helicity.
Sourav Kundu, Constantinos Simserides
We study charge movement in quasi 1D systems having in mind different biomolecules, e.g, DNA and proteins. It has been reported that biomolecules with helical symmetry may contain more than one channel through which charge can move. This provides us with a new way to look into these systems from different modeling points of view. We are going to employ various appropriate tight-binding variants, e.g., wire fishbone, ladder fishbone (dangling backbone ladder) and extended ladder fishbone models to find the best description. One aim is to find the effects of long- range hopping on charge transport properties for different quasi 1D systems that arises because of helical symmetry. We are going examine various types of long range hopping to find the best possible fit.