ABSTRACT
The physics and modeling of biological molecular components is discussed in the context of defining DNA-based biological molecule switches (BMSs) that will be useful for incorporating into larger DNA-based nanoscaffolds for the purposes of defining a novel class of smart materials for terahertz (THz) and/or very far-infrared (far-IR) based biological sensing. The chapter presents DNA-derivative architectures with new spectral-based sensing modalities that will be useful for long-wavelength bio-sensing applications. The exploration of bio-organic device functionality and sensing in the future will require interfacing to traditional electronic materials and/or structures. Resonant far-IR spectroscopy is a common technique for the characterization of biological (bio) molecules. If DNA-derivatives are used that allow for being light-induced into many different metastable states, then the large amount of resulting spectral signature information would allow for full identification and characterization of the associated genetic sequence information.
