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Updated: Jun 16, 2025

Engineering Molecular Recognition with Bio-mimetic Polymers on Single Walled Carbon Nanotubes
Published on: January 10, 2017
Engineered chirality of one-dimensional nanowires
Megan Briggeman1,2, Elliott Mansfield3, Johannes Kombe3
1Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15260, USA.
Abstract:
The origin and function of chirality in DNA, proteins, and other building blocks of life represent a central question in biology. Observations of spin polarization and magnetization associated with electron transport through chiral molecules, known collectively as the chiral induced spin selectivity effect, suggest that chirality improves electron transfer. Using reconfigurable nanoscale control over conductivity at the LaAlO3/SrTiO3 interface, we create chiral electron potentials that explicitly lack mirror symmetry. Quantum transport measurements on these chiral nanowires reveal enhanced electron pairing persisting to high magnetic fields (up to 18 tesla) and oscillatory transmission resonances as functions of both magnetic field and chemical potential. We interpret these resonances as arising from an engineered axial spin-orbit interaction within the chiral region. The ability to create one-dimensional electron waveguides with this specificity creates opportunities to test, via analog quantum simulation, theories about chirality and spin-polarized electron transport in one-dimensional geometries.
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