<u>Photospintronics- Light-controlled spin transport in hybrid chiral oligopeptide-nanoparticle structures</u>

It has been found the transmission of electrons through chiral molecules depends on their spin orientation; this is known as chiral induced spin selectivity.This effect makes it feasible to build spintronic devices without ferromagnetic spin injectors since the chiral molecules themselves serve to choose a specific spin to transfer across the molecules.
We began building a device which would aid in furthering research on spintronics. It consists of an Si substrate, plated with a layer of Ni, a ferromagnetic material, further coated by a layer of gold, as the base layer. In the hybrid system studied therein. Helical chiral molecules of cysteine hydrochloride were attached on one end to the base layer mentioned above, and on the other end to a MoS₂ thin film.
The chiral molecules taken in this case were right helical structures. When right circularly polarized light is shined on the device, electron hole pairs are generated and those electrons with right handed spin are excited and are selected to move through the chiral molecules.Vice versa occurs when the chirality or polarisation is reversed.