Bath Correlation Effects on Inelastic Charge Transport Through DNA Junctions

The effect of correlations in bath-assisted inelastic transport through DNA molecular junctions is studied. Assigning physical meaning to the correlated bath modes, we examine the relative contributions of different types of nuclear modes to the inelastic transport. In particular, we demonstrate that intra-strand (backbone modes) and inter-strand (Hydrogen bonds) modes have different contributions to the current, and thus can be associated with a measurable phenomenon. This work emphasizes the important effect of bath correlations on quantum transport, as pointed out recently also in the context of electron energy transport in bio-molecular environment. The approach presented in this work is complementary to detailed atomistic simulations which account for specific intra-molecular and intermolecular vibrational modes.