Biomemory device composed of mutant azurin thin films modified by site-directed mutagenesis

A bioelectronic device composed of self-assembled mutant azurin thin films with memory function has been developed for molecular electronics. Azurin was recombined with a cysteine residue to enhance the stability of self-assembled protein on gold surface. The thin films of protein on gold substrate were investigated by surface plasmon resonance spectroscopy, scanning tunneling microscopy and Raman spectroscopy, respectively. The memory characteristics, including the read, write and erase functions of self-assembled azurin layer, were obtained with three distinct electrical states of azurin layers by cyclic voltammetry. These results show the proposed biomemory device as a step towards the protein based nanobiochip. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.