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Electrons moving through chiral molecules are selected according to their spin orientation and the helicity of the molecule, an effect known as chiral induced spin selectivity (CISS). The underlying physical mechanism is not yet completely understood. To help elucidate this mechanism, a non-equilibrium Green’s function method, combined with a Landauer approach and density functional theory, is applied to carbon helices contacted by gold electrodes, resulting in spin polarization of transmitted electrons. Interestingly, spin polarization is also observed in the non-equilibrium electronic structure of the junctions. While this spin polarization is small, its sign changes with the direction of current and with the handedness of the molecule. While these calculations were performed with a pure exchange-correlation functional, previous studies suggest that computationally more expensive hybrid functionals may lead to considerably larger spin polarization in the electronic structure. Thus, nonequilibrium spin polarization could be a key component in understanding the CISS mechanism.

We use a nonlinear master equation formalism to account for thermal and disorder effects on spin-dependent electron transport in helical organic molecules coupled to two ideal leads. The inclusion of these two effects has important consequences in understanding the observed length and temperature dependence of spin polarization in experiments, which cannot be accounted for in a purely coherent tunneling model. Our approach considers a tight-binding helical Hamiltonian with disordered onsite energies to describe the resulting electronic states when low-frequency interacting modes break the electron coherence. The high-frequency fluctuating counterpart of these interactions, typical of intramolecular modes, is included by means of temperature-dependent thermally activated transfer probabilities in the master equation, which lead to hopping between localized states. We focus on the spin-dependent conductance and the spin-polarization in the linear regime (low voltage), which are analyzed as a function of the molecular length and the temperature of the system. Our results at room temperature agree well with experiments because our model predicts that the degree of spin-polarization increases for longer molecules. Also, this effect is temperature-dependent because thermal excitation competes with disorder-induced Anderson localization. We conclude that a transport mechanism based on thermally activated hopping in a disordered system can account for the unexpected behavior of the spin polarization.

Chirality-induced spin selectivity (CISS) is a recently discovered effect, whose precise microscopic origin has not yet been fully elucidated; it seems, however, clear that spin-orbit interaction plays a pivotal role. Various model Hamiltonian approaches have been proposed, suggesting a close connection between spin selectivity and filtering and helical symmetry. However, first-principles studies revealing the influence of chirality on the spin polarization are missing. To clearly demonstrate the influence of the helical conformation on the spin polarization properties, we have carried out spin-dependent Density-Functional Theory (DFT) based transport calculations for a model molecular system. It consists of α-helix and β-strand conformations of an oligo-glycine peptide, which is bonded to a nickel electrode and to a gold electrode in a two-terminal setup, similar to a molecular junction or a local probe, for example, in STM or AFM configurations. We have found that the α-helix conformation displays a spin polarization, calculated through the intrinsic magneto-resistance of the junction, about 100-1000 times larger than the linear β-strand, clearly demonstrating the crucial role played by the molecular helical geometry on the enhancement of spin polarization associated with the CISS effect.

The single-molecule conductance of hydrogen-bonded and alkane systems are compared in this theoretical investigation. The results indicate that for short chains, the H-bonded molecules exhibit larger conductance than the alkanes. Although earlier experimental investigations attributed this observation to a large density of states (DOS) corresponding to an occupied molecular orbital below the Fermi energy, the current work indicates the presence of a Fano resonance in the transmission function in the vicinity of the Fermi energy. The inclusion of this observation is essential in understanding the behavior of these systems. We also address the characteristics of the H-bond for transport and provide an explanation for the presence of a turnover regime wherein the conductance of the alkanes becomes larger than the H-bonded systems. Incidentally, this feature cannot be explained using a simple DOS argument.

Salicylate and salicylic acid derivatives act as electron donors via charge-transfer complexes when adsorbed on semiconducting surfaces. When photoexcited, charge is injected into the conduction band directly from their highest occupied molecular orbital (HOMO) without needing mediation by the lowest unoccupied molecular orbital (LUMO). In this study, we successfully induce the chemical participation of carbon dioxide in a charge transfer state using 3-aminosalicylic acid (3ASA). We determine the geometry of CO2 using a combination of ultraviolet-visible spectroscopy (UV-vis), surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS), (13)C NMR, and electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR). We find CO2 binds on Ti sites in a carbonate form and discern via EPR a surface Ti-centered radical in the vicinity of CO2, suggesting successful charge transfer from the sensitizer to the neighboring site of CO2. This study opens the possibility of analyzing the structural and electronic properties of the anchoring sites for CO2 on semiconducting surfaces and proposes a set of tools and experiments to do so.

The transition from diamagnetic to ferromagnetic behavior is one of the most dramatic quantum size-dependent effects in noble metals. The origin of the ferromagnetic behavior of Au nanoparticles is associated with a spin symmetry breaking at the Fermi level, which leads to a quasi-degeneracy of states whose magnetic properties differ markedly from the diamagnetic behavior encountered in bulk Au. We have performed quantum-chemical density functional theory-based calculations of the electronic, optical, and magnetic properties of Au clusters to clarify several aspects of the behavior of nanogold. In some cases, we found a remarkable stability of the localized magnetic moments of the clusters that support a dual domain model for Au nanoparticles to explain their magnetic properties, that is, a diamagnetic core and localized surface moments. This magnetic transition influences the optical response of the nanoparticles, quenching the intensity of the absorption associated to the plasmon resonance. We found tha...

Characterizing the nano-bio interface has been a long-standing endeavor in the quest for novel biosensors, biophotovoltaics, and biocompatible electronic devices. In this context, the present computational work on the interaction of two peptides, A6K (Ac-AAAAAAK-NH2) and A7 (Ac-AAAAAAA-NH2) with semiconducting TiO2 nanoparticles is an effort to understand the peptide-metal oxide nanointerface. These investigations were spurred by recent experimental observations that nanostructured semiconducting metal oxides templated with A6K peptides not only stabilize large proteins like photosystem-I (PS-I) but also exhibit enhanced charge-transfer characteristics. Our results indicate that α-helical structures of A6K are not only energetically more stabilized on TiO2 nanoparticles, but the resulting hybrids also exhibit enhanced electron transfer characteristics. This enhancement can be attributed to substantial changes in the electronic characteristics at the peptide-TiO2 interface. Apart from understanding the mechanism of electron transfer (ET) in peptide-stabilized PS-I on metal oxide nanoparticles, the current work also has implications in the development of novel solar cells and photocatalysts.