Nakamae S, Cazayous M, Sacuto A, Monod P, Bouchiat H
Laboratoire de Matériaux et Phénomène Quantiques (UMR 7162), Université Paris 7-Denis-Diderot, Paris, France.
Phys Rev Lett. 2005 Jun 24;94(24):248102. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.94.248102. Epub 2005 Jun 23.
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.