Chiral electron transport: Scattering through helical potentials

Sina Yeganeh*, Mark A. Ratner, Ernesto Medina, Vladimiro Mujica

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

162 Scopus citations

Abstract

We present a model for the transmission of spin-polarized electrons through oriented chiral molecules, where the chiral structure is represented by a helix. The scattering potential contains a confining term and a spin-orbit contribution that is responsible for the spin-dependent scattering of electrons by the molecular target. The differential scattering cross section is calculated for right- and left-handed helices and for arbitrary electron spin polarizations. We apply our model to explain chiral effects in the intensity of photoemitted polarized electrons transmitted through thin organic layers. These are molecular interfaces that exhibit spin-selective scattering with surprisingly large asymmetry factors as well as a number of remarkable magnetic properties. In our model, differences in intensity are generated by the preferential transmission of electron beams whose polarization is oriented in the same direction as the sense of advance of the helix. This model can be easily extended to the Landauer regime of conductance where conductance is due to elastic scattering, so that we can consider the conductance of chiral molecular junctions.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number014707
JournalJournal of Chemical Physics
Volume131
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - 2009

Funding

We thank G. Solomon, T. Hansen, and A. Nitzan for helpful discussions. S.Y. is grateful for support from the Office of Naval Research through a NDSEG fellowship. We thank the NSF for support from the Division of Chemistry as well as the Division of Materials Research through the Northwestern MRSEC.

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Physics and Astronomy
  • Physical and Theoretical Chemistry

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