Statistical mechanics of DNA-nanotube adsorption.

Attraction between the polycyclic aromatic surface elements of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and the aromatic nucleotides of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) leads to reversible adsorption (physisorption) between the two, a phenomenon related to hybridization. We propose a Hamiltonian formulation for the zipper model that accounts for the DNA-CNT interactions and allows for the processing of experimental data, which has awaited an available theory for a decade.