The project The background

The background

In a nutshell, the CISS is based on the spin-dependent electron displacement across a chiral electrostatic potential, as schematized in the image.

Which spin is preferred depends on the handedness of the chiral potential and the direction of motion. This effect operates at room temperature and allows the injecting of spin-polarized currents without using a ferromagnetic material.

Following the pioneering works of Ron Naaman on self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) of chiral amino-acids or polypeptides on gold¹, the CISS effect has been shown to manifest itself in several phenomena. These observations include spin-dependent electrochemistry,² spin selectivity in photoelectrochemical water splitting,³ spin-dependent photoluminescence,⁴ magnetless spin light-emitting diodes operating at room temperature,⁵ and magnetic polarization of substrates via adsorption of chiral molecules.⁶