ICS Award Lecture
The electron’s spin as a chiral reagent

Spin based properties, applications, and devices are commonly related to magnetic effects and to magnetic materials. However, we found that chiral organic molecules act as spin filters for photoelectrons transmission,^[1] in electron transfer,^[2] and in electron transport.^[3] The effect, termed Chiral Induced Spin Selectivity (CISS),^[4],[5] was found, among others, in bio-molecules and in bio-systems.

One outcome from the effect is the discovery that in chiral molecules charge polarization is accompanied by transient spin polarization. This leads to new understanding of chiral recognition which is not based on the “lock and key” model but rather involves a chiral-specific component of the electronic interaction.

As a result of all these findings, it is possible to control reaction by manipulating the electron’s spin and to separate enantiomers via spin-spin interaction.[6] It will be shown that spin polarized electrons can be viewed as a chiral ingredient in reactions and are able to distinguish between enantiomers and to block certain reactions paths while enhancing others.

References:

[[1]] Göhler, B et al. Science 2011, 331, 894.

[[2]] Mishra, D et al. PNAS, 2013, 110, 14872.

[[3]] Xie, Z et al. Nano Letters, 2011, 11, 4652.

[[4]] Naaman, R.; Waldeck, D.H. J. Phys. Chem. Lett. (feature) 2012, 3, 2178.

[[5]] R. Naaman, D. H. Waldeck Ann. Rev. Phys. Chem. 2015, 66, 263–81.

[[6]] K. Banerjee-Ghosh, et al. Science 2018, 360, 1331–1334.