Chiral-induced spin selectivity enables a room-temperature spin light-emitting diode

TLDR

Spin-LEDs that emit circularly polarized light usually rely on ferromagnetic contacts and magnetic fields, but spin injection without magnetism offers new possibilities for 3D displays, bioencoding, and tomography. The authors aim to demonstrate a room-temperature spin-LED that uses a chiral-induced spin selectivity organic layer instead of magnetic contacts. The chiral layer injects spin-polarized holes into metal halide perovskite nanocrystals, where they recombine with unpolarized electrons. This configuration yields 2.6% spin-polarized light emission at room temperature. Published in Science, p.1129.

Abstract

Spin injection sans magnetism Light-emitting diodes (LEDs) that emit circularly polarized light (spin-LEDs) have potential applications in in three-dimensional displays, bioencoding, and tomography. The requisite spin polarization of the charge carriers is usually achieved with ferromagnetic contacts and applied magnetic fields, but Kim et al. report on a room-temperature spin-LED that relies instead on a chiral-induced spin selectivity organic layer. This layer selectively injected spin-polarized holes into metal halide perovskite nanocrystals, where they radiatively recombined with unpolarized electrons with an efficiency of 2.6%. Science , this issue p. 1129