Spin-dependent electron transport in protein-like single-helical molecules

Abstract

Significance The control of electron spin transport in molecular systems has been receiving lots of attention among different scientific communities because of possible applications in spintronics and understanding of the spin effects in biological systems. Recent experiments have demonstrated that α-helical protein acts as an efficient spin filter and the chiral-induced spin selectivity may be a general phenomenon. However, no spin selectivity was measured in single-stranded DNA above the experimental noise. In the present study, we propose a physical model to rationalize the above phenomena, and provide an unambiguous physical mechanism for spin-selective phenomenon observed in α-helical protein and for the contradictory behaviors between protein and single-stranded DNA. These results may facilitate engineering of chiral-based spintronic devices.