Evaluating Graphene and Molybdenum Disulfide Nanopores for DNA Sequencing

Abstract

Graphene and molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) nanopores, with their superior characteristics and subnanometer thickness, are expected to be the next generation of rapid and low-cost methods of DNA sequencing. In this paper, focused ion beam (FIB) is employed to fabricate nanopores with similar sizes on these two-dimensional (2D) materials to compare their performance in sequencing DNA. According to our experimental results, graphene nanopores have a stronger interaction with DNA than MoS2, which contributes to a better temporal resolution. However, in the low-frequency region, the 1/f noise level of MoS2 is obviously lower than that of graphene. Furthermore, the nanopore was fabricated on graphene and MoS2 heterostructure for DNA sequencing, and the translocation events were successfully captured. It is demonstrated that the new heterostructure reduces the high noise level in the low-frequency region of graphene nanopores in DNA sequencing. It is expected that graphene and MoS2 can complement each other and facilitate the realization of single-base detection resolution in the future.