Seminar: Magnetic Phenomena in Chiral Structures

Chirality is a geometrical property of structures lacking both inversion and reflection symmetries. For example, the left and right hands of a human reflect opposite chiralities of an otherwise essentially identical structure. Chiral structures are abundant in nature, but it is only during the last century chirality has become of great interest in physical and chemical sciences, for both fundamental reasons and for their technological potential. As an example, chiral molecules and materials have been shown to yield enhanced catalytic properties with potential to further improve the efficiency and power of fuel cells, something which may accelerate the transition to clean energy technologies. In the context of life science, moreover, chiral molecules have been shown to open new ways to understanding the efficiency of oxygen reduction reactions in aerobic life [1,2].

The general ides is to consider the relation between chirality and magnetic phenomena at the fundamental level, should there be any. Most of the existing experimental evidence is based on measurements on closed shell compounds, for instance, chiral single molecules and larger self-assembled molecular aggregates, as well as, crystalline materials. The body of experimental evidence shows that properties associated with chiral molecules are actually not confined to the molecules themselves but are present also in the compound they are interfaced with. Taking the optimistic point of view and consider the experimental results to be correct, I discuss theoretical descriptions [3,4,5] that may be used to help in their interpretation. To this end, it is necessary to account for the whole heterostructure in order to describe the conditions that lead to magnetic phenomena caused by chirality.

1. Y. Sang, J. Fransson, F. Tassinari, K. Santra, W. Zhang, C. Fontanesi, and R. Naaman, Chirality enhances oxygen reduction, PNAS, 30, 2202650119 (2022).

1. A. Gupta, A. Kumar, D. K. Bhowmick, C. Fontanesi, Y. Paltiel, J. Fransson, and R. Naaman, Does Coherence Affect the Multielectron Oxygen Reduction Reaction? J. Phys. Chem. Lett. 14, 9377 (2023).

1. J. Fransson and L. Turin, Current induced spin-polarization in chiral molecules, J. Phys. Chem. Lett. 15, 6370 (2024).

1. J. Fransson and R. Naaman, Chirality assisted triplet electron pairing, J. Phys. Chem. Lett. 16, 1629 (2025).

1. J. Fransson, Y. Kapon, L. Brann, S. Yochelis, D. D. Sasselov, Y. Paltiel, and S. F. Ozturk, Chiral phonons enhance ferromagnetism, J. Phys. Chem. Lett. 16, 2001 (2025).