Chiral Induced Spin Selectivity Effect: Fundamental Studies and Applications

Since the discovery, chiral induced spin selectivity effect or CISS effect, which refers to the preferential transmission of electron of one spin over another through a chiral molecule/material, has generated significant interest due to its versatile application in different branches of science. Over the years, a large number of theoretical and experimental studies are done to understand the mechanism of CISS effect and also to utilize the effect in different field of science; such as memory devices, electrocatalytic experiments, chiral separation etc. In this dissertation, fundamental studies of the chiral molecule at the ferromagnetic interface are investigated through surface potential and magnetic measurements. Experiments are also done to study the spin filtering properties of chiral thin film and explore their electrocatalytic activity In the first study chiral molecule induced magnetization of the superparamagnetic particles was shown. This experiment shows a novel method to create ferromagnetic particle of 10 nm size from superparamagnetic particle using CISS. In the second study, spin dependent charge penetration to chiral molecule from the ferromagnetic substrate is presented by measuring surface potential using Kelvin probe method. In the third study, spin dependent electron transmission through chiral cobalt oxide thin film was performed by using magnetic conductive AFM and magnetoresistance measurements. In the forth study the electrocatalytic efficiency for water splitting was studied using chiral and magnetic thin cobalt oxide film. The finding of these studies serve to progress the CISS field and may help developing new CISS based spintronics device and electrocatalysts.