Chiral spintronics based on Au-SAM heterostructures.

Chirality, the handedness of molecules or crystalline structures, uniquely interacts with the spin of electrons that travel through the material. As a result, chiral materials tend to act as spin filters: the chiral axis of the material imposes a preferential spin direction and leads to a net spin polarization of an injected charge current. This effect is known as chiral-induced spin selectivity (CISS) and has enormous potential for spintronic applications and enantio-specific sensing in biomedical research. At present, the mechanistic origin of CISS is still unclear. There is growing evidence that CISS in molecular systems is in fact an interfacial effect, mediated by strong spin-orbit coupling (SOC) in the metallic contact.

In this project, you will fabricate novel chiral spintronic devices based on heterostructures of self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) of chiral molecules on Au surfaces. You will perform inverse-spin-Hall effect (ISHE) measurements to study the impact of the chiral molecule on the spin-to-charge conversion efficiency in Au. These measurements will be complemented with ultraviolet photo-emission spectroscopy (UPS) of the chiral SAMs to quantify the intrinsic CISS effect in these materials. This methodology combined with the well-defined chiral axis of the chiral SAMs offers a unique platform to investigate the fundamental properties of the CISS effect in a device architecture that is highly relevant to future spintronic or sensing applications.