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O: Fachverband Oberflächenphysik

O 26: Focus Session: Spin Phenomena in Chiral Molecular Systems I (joint session O/TT)

O 26.2: Topical Talk

Tuesday, March 19, 2024, 11:00–11:30, MA 141

Electrons, Vibrations and Chirality — •Martin B. Plenio — Institut of Theoretical Physics and Center for Quantum Biosciences, Ulm University, Germany

Chirality - the handedness of molecules and larger structures - plays an important role in a plethora of biological, chemical, and physical processes. Peptides, DNA-helices, and small chiral molecules are identical in their constitution apart from their handedness and can have completely different interactions with biological receptors. For example, their taste can vary between chocolate or mint (menthol) or their effect can be either tranquilising or cause birth defects (thalidomide) depending on their chirality.

In 2011, it was observed that photo-electrons passing through a self-assembled monolayer of double-stranded DNA with a fixed helicity on a gold surface acquire significant spin polarisation. This chirality-induced spin selectivity (CISS) has been confirmed in various molecules.

However, there is no consensus regarding the microscopic mechanism that can explain the experimental data quantitatively. Here I would like to discuss theoretical models that combine vibrational molecular dynamics and momentum conservation to provide a possible mechanism to explain CISS and discuss potential experimental signatures that one may explore to confirm or refute this hypothesis.

Keywords: Chirality; Electron dynamics; Vibrational dynamics; Spin polarization