Interaction of nucleobases with silicene nanoribbon: A density functional approach

•Silicene has the immediate advantage of being compatible with existing silicon technologies.•Binding energy of bio conjugated system exhibits following order: G > C > A > T.•DOS of SiNR and the nucleobase-SiNR complexes shows semimetal and metal behavior, respectively.•For the buckled structure of silicene, leads to great potential applications of silicene in gas sensors and nanoelectronic devices.

Silicene, a hexagonal buckled 2D allotrope of silicon, shows potential for numerous new applications, and may allow for easier integration with existing silicon-based microelectronics than graphene. The possibility of the application of silicene as a biosensor is discussed. The interaction between a hydrogen-passivated zigzag silicene nanoribbon (ZSiNR) and the nucleic acid bases, adenine (A), guanine (G), cytosine (C) and thymine (T), is investigated by density functional theory. The binding energy of the nucleobase-stacked nanoribbons shows the following order: G > C > A > T.

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