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Intrinsic low temperature paramagnetism in B-DNA
S Nakamae1, M Cazayous, A Sacuto
1Laboratoire de Matériaux et Phénomène Quantiques (UMR 7162), Université Paris 7-Denis-Diderot, Paris, France.
Abstract:
We present an experimental study of magnetization in lambda-DNA in conjunction with structural measurements. The results show the surprising interplay between the molecular structures and their magnetic property. In the B-DNA state, lambda-DNA exhibits paramagnetic behavior below 20 K that is nonlinear in an applied magnetic field whereas, in the A-DNA state, it remains diamagnetic down to 2 K. We propose orbital paramagnetism as the origin of the observed phenomena and discuss its relation to the existence of long range coherent transport in B-DNA at low temperature.
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