Conic shapes have higher sensitivity than cylindrical ones in nanopore DNA sequencing

Nanopores have emerged as helpful research tools for single molecule detection. Through continuum modeling, we investigated the effects of membrane thickness, nanopore size, and pore shape on current signal characteristics of DNA. The simulation results showed that, when reducing the pore diameter, the amplitudes of current signals of DNA increase. Moreover, we found that, compared to cylindrically shaped nanopores, conical-shaped nanopores produce greater signal amplitudes from biomolecules translocation. Finally, we demonstrated that continuum model simulations for the discrimination of DNA and RNA yield current characteristics approximately consistent with experimental measurements and that A-T and G-C base pairs can be distinguished using thin conical solid-state nanopores. Our study not only suggests that computational approaches in this work can be used to guide the designs of nanopore for single molecule detection, but it also provides several possible ways to improve the current amplitudes of nanopores for better resolution.