TUESDAY 14:00
MECHANICAL PROBE FOR MOLECULAR ELECTRONICS: THE CASE OF SPIN FILTERING BY CHIRAL MOLECULES
Ernesto Medina D.
School of Physical Sciences and Nanotechnology, Yachay Tech
ABSTRACT
Spintronics is an area of condensed matter physics that studies the use of both the charge of the electron and its spin for transport, manipulation with external fields, information encoding, and electron detection. Spintronics has been explored in ferromagnets, metal-ferromagnetic interfaces, semiconductors coupled to polarized radiation and semiconductor-superconductor interfaces. In these materials, effects such as giant magnetoresistance have revolutionized memory devices and result in a new generation of switches and transistors that are part of everyday life. More recently spintronics has been launched into the realm of molecular electron transport by the experimental discovery of strong electron spin polarization effects that make for a new generation of biologically based devices. Nevertheless, the underlying physics is very poorly understood and it depends critically on the source of transport electrons and the geometry of molecular bonding. In this talk we will explain how we propose to probe at the details of the spectral mechanisms producing electron spin polarization by using mechanical deformations. We will present analytical modeling of the interactions involved for a model of DNA (a strong electron polarizer) and discuss the experimental predictions implied by the model. This way of looking at the role of atomic orbitals in electron transport, may prove to be a new spectroscopic tool by probing the mechanics of low dimensional systems.