Spin selectivity through time-reversal symmetric helical junctions

Abstract

Time-reversal symmetric charge and spin transport through a molecule comprising two-orbital channels and connected to two leads is analyzed. It is demonstrated that spin-resolved currents are generated when spin-flip processes are accompanied by a flip of the orbital channels. This surprising finding does not contradict Bardarson's theorem [J. H. Bardarson, J. Phys. A: Math. Theor. 41, 405203 (2008)] for two-terminal junctions: the transmission does possess two pairs of doubly-degenerate eigenvalues as required by the theorem. The spin-filtering effect is explicitly demonstrated for a two-terminal chiral molecular junction, modeled by a two-orbital tight-binding chain with intra-atomic spin-orbit interactions (SOI). In the context of transport through organic molecules like DNA, this effect is termed "chirality-induced spin selectivity" (CISS). The model exhibits spin-splitting without breaking time-reversal symmetry: the intra-atomic SOI induces concomitant spin and orbital flips. Examining these transitions from the point of view of the Bloch states in an infinite molecule, it is shown that they cause shifts in the Bloch wave numbers, of the size of the reciprocal single turn, whose directions depend on the left-and right-handedness of the helix. As a result, spin-up and spin-down states propagate in the opposite directions, leading to the CISS effect. To further substantiate our picture, we present an analytically-tractable expression for the 8$\times$8 scattering matrix of such a (single) molecule.

19 pages, 7 figures

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Cited by in corpus (28)

• Unusual Spin Polarization in the Chirality Induced Spin Selectivity
• Role of Exchange Interactions in the Magnetic Response and Intermolecular Recognition of Chiral Molecules
• Geometric spin-orbit coupling and chirality-induced spin selectivity
• Spin Polarization through A Molecular Junction Based on Nuclear Berry Curvature Effects
• Interplay between friction and spin-orbit coupling as a source of spin polarization
• The Chiral Induced Spin Selectivity Effect -- What It Is, What It Is Not, And Why It Matters
• Giant chirality-induced spin-selectivity of polarons
• Chirality-Induced Spin Filtering in Pseudo Jahn-Teller Molecules
• A mechanism for electrostatically generated magnetoresistance in chiral systems without spin-dependent transport
• Interface-Induced Conservation of Momentum Leads to Chiral-Induced Spin Selectivity
• A group-theoretic approach to the origin of chirality-induced spin selectivity in non-magnetic molecular junctions
• Spin-dependent electron transport along hairpin-like DNA molecules
• Comment on: "Spin-orbit interaction and spin selectivity for tunneling electron transfer in DNA"
• Chiral cavity induced spin selectivity
• Topologically nontrivial and trivial zero modes in chiral molecules
• Magnetoconductance Anisotropies and Aharonov-Casher Phases
• Spin-filtering in a $p$-orbital helical atomic chain
• Mind the Gap: From Resolving Theoretical Foundations of Chiral(ity)-Induced Spin Selectivity to Pioneering Implementations in Quantum Sensing
• Should it really be that hard to model the chirality induced spin selectivity effect?
• Chirality-dependent second-order spin current in systems with time-reversal symmetry
• Spin-orbit interactions, time-reversal symmetry, and spin selection
• Breaking of Time-Reversal Symmetry and Onsager Reciprocity in Chiral Molecule Interfacd with an Environment
• Floquet-engineered chiral-induced spin selectivity
• Electronic and Spin States at Edges of Finite $p$-orbital Helical Atomic Chain
• Interatomic spin-orbit interaction in a $p$-orbital helical atomic chain
• Linear-response magnetoresistance effects in chiral systems
• Topological states in chiral electronic chains
• Weak Electron-Phonon Coupling Is Insufficient to Generate Significant CISS in Two-Terminal Transport