In electron-transfer processes, spin effects normally are seen either in magnetic materials or in systems containing heavy atoms that facilitate spin-orbit coupling. We report spin-selective transmission of electrons through self-assembled monolayers of double-stranded DNA on gold. By directly measuring the spin of the transmitted electrons with a Mott polarimeter, we found spin polarizations exceeding 60% at room temperature. The spin-polarized photoelectrons were observed even when the photoelectrons were generated with unpolarized light. The observed spin selectivity at room temperature was extremely high as compared with other known spin filters. The spin filtration efficiency depended on the length of the DNA in the monolayer and its organization.

Spin-based properties, applications, and devices are commonly related to magnetic effects and to magnetic materials. Most of the development in spintronics is currently based on inorganic materials. Despite the fact that the magnetoresistance effect has been observed in organic materials, until now spin selectivity of organic based spintronics devices originated from an inorganic ferromagnetic electrode and was not determined by the organic molecules themselves. Here we show that conduction through double-stranded DNA oligomers is spin selective, demonstrating a true organic spin filter. The selectivity exceeds that of any known system at room temperature. The spin dependent resistivity indicates that the effect cannot result solely from the atomic spin-orbit coupling and must relate to a special property resulting from the chirality symmetry. The results may reflect on the importance of spin in determining electron transfer rates through biological systems.

Current transport by tunneling through molecular devices is thought to be dominated by the height and width of the barrier(s) resulting from the presence of molecules between the electrodes. To a first approximation, the barrier height in metal/molecule junctions is given by the energy difference between the Fermi level of the electrode and the closest molecular energy levels, the highest occupied molecular orbital (HOMO) and/or the lowest unoccupied molecular orbital (LUMO). For semiconductor/molecule junctions, the corresponding barrier height is the energy difference between the edge of the conduction or valence band and the LUMO or HOMO, respectively, depending on the semiconductor doping type, and can be tuned by changing the semiconductor doping type.[1] Experimentally the position of the molecules' HOMO and LUMO relative to the electrodes' Fermi level or band edges can be determined using ultraviolet photoemission spectroscopy (UPS) and inverse photoemission spectroscopy (IPES) measurements. Therefore, the tunneling-barrier height through a molecular layer can, in principle, be deduced by using this method.[2]Here, we compare and analyze the electronic transport through alkyl chains, C n H 2n+1 with n = 12, 14, 16, and 18, bound directly to p-or n-Si, via C-Si bonds, and contacted by Hg to form Si-alkyl/Hg junctions. In these molecular junctions the alkyl chains are connected via the same Si-C bonds to either n-or p-Si, with presumably the same amount of charge transfer between the molecule and the electrode as a result of this bond formation. This feature allows us to isolate and ascertain the effect of the electrode Fermi-level position on charge transport through the junction. [3,4] As carried out earlier for the n-Si system only, [5] we now deduce the barriers for charge transport through the alkane monolayers, both from transport through the junctions and from spectroscopic measurements of the corresponding p-and n-Si-C n H 2n+1 interfaces. The main differences in analyses with our earlier n-Si work [5] are that we use a more complete model for transport analysis and that we can now interpret the photoemission data with the help of complementary theoretical computations. [6] In this way, we find that whereas the spectroscopic measurements show a tunnel barrier of approximately 3-4 eV (rather than the smaller one derived earlier [5] without the help of theory to interpret the IPES and UPS data), fitting the current-voltage (I-V) curves to transport by tunneling yields a barrier of only approximately 0.7-1 eV. We show that this difference, which is ascribed to the presence of states at the interface caused by Si molecule interactions beyond Si-C bond formation, forces us to revise our view of tunneling through such molecular junctions. As shown earlier, in a semiconductor/saturated-molecule/ metal junction, two transport barriers can exist simultaneously, a Schottky barrier inside the semiconductor, caused by band bending near the interface, and a tunnel barrier formed by the insulating, r-bonded molecu...

Spin-dependent photoelectron transmission and spin-dependent electrochemical studies were conducted on purple membrane containing bacteriorhodopsin (bR) deposited on gold, aluminum/ aluminum-oxide, and nickel substrates. The result indicates spin selectivity in electron transmission through the membrane. Although the chiral bR occupies only about 10% of the volume of the membrane, the spin polarization found is on the order of 15%. The electrochemical studies indicate a strong dependence of the conduction on the protein's structure. Denaturation of the protein causes a sharp drop in the conduction through the membrane.electron transfer | electrochemistry | magnetic effect | chirality T he role of the electron spin in chemistry and biology has been receiving much attention because of a plausible relation to electromagnetic field effects on living organisms (1), and due to the seemingly importance of the earth's magnetic field on birds and fish navigation (2). Part of the difficulty in studying the subject arises from the lack of a physical model that can rationalize these phenomena. Recently, the chiral-induced spin selectivity (CISS) effect was observed in electron transmission and conduction through organic molecules (3). The spin selectivity was observed for photoelectron transmission through monolayers of double-stranded DNA adsorbed on gold (4). Another study discovered a spin dependence in the conduction through single molecules of double-stranded DNA. In this configuration, one end of the molecule was adsorbed on a Ni substrate, whereas the other was attached to a gold nanoparticle (5).The CISS effect may provide a novel approach for better understanding the role of electron spin in biological systems. The studies mentioned above led to several questions, including the actual role played by the gold substrate in the overall spinfiltering process. Gold exhibits a very large spin orbit coupling; hence, one may wonder whether gold itself affects the CISS phenomenon. In addition, the interface between gold and the thiol group, through which the molecules are attached to the gold, may play a role. Because many of the past studies were performed with DNA, an important question arises whether CISS is a general effect or possibly a special property of DNA. CISS was only observed for double-stranded DNA, whereas for single-stranded molecules, no spin selectivity was found. On the one hand, this was attributed to the lack of ordered monolayers (4, 6); on the other hand, a theoretical model, proposed to rationalize the CISS effect, predicted that a double-helix structure (7) was needed for CISS to occur, whereas other approaches do not emphasize this need (8). Finally, because many of the past studies were performed in vacuum or in ambient air, it is of importance to probe to what extent the effect persists in solutions, which are more relevant to biology. The present study aims at answering the above questions in an attempt to establish CISS as a general phenomenon.For the present study, we chose bacteriorhodopsin (...

Assemblies of CdSe nanoparticles (NPs) on a dithiol-coated Au electrode were created, and their electronic energetics were quantified. This report describes the energy level alignment of the filled and unfilled electronic states of CdSe nanoparticles with respect to the Au Fermi level. Using cyclic voltammetry, it was possible to measure the energy of the filled states of the CdSe NPs with respect to the Au substrate relative to a Ag/AgNO 3 electrode, and by using photoemission spectroscopy, it was possible to independently measure both the filled state energies (via single photon photoemission) and those of the unfilled states (via two photon photoemission) with respect to the vacuum level. Comparison of these two different measures shows good agreement with the IUPAC-accepted value of the absolute electrode potential. In contrast to the common model of energy level alignment, the experimental findings show that the CdSe filled states become 'pinned' to the Fermi level of the Au electrode, even for moderately small NP sizes.