Related Experiment Video
Updated: Oct 2, 2026

An Electrochemical Cholesteric Liquid Crystalline Device for Quick and Low-Voltage Color Modulation
Published on: February 27, 2019
Giant Anisotropic Spin Absorption in Chiral Hybrid Semiconductors
Cong Yang1,2, Rui Sun2,3, Mingwei Ge4,5
1Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina, USA.
Abstract:
Control of spin-current absorption in non-magnetic materials is central to realizing spin-current switches and low-power spintronic technologies, yet anisotropic responses have so far been limited to a narrow class of crystalline materials. Here we demonstrate giant chirality-induced anisotropic spin-current absorption (CASA) in solution-processed chiral hybrid organic-inorganic semiconductors (HOISs), establishing them as a versatile platform for symmetry-selective spin manipulation. Zero-dimensional [R/S/rac-MBA]4Bi2Cl10 (MBA = α-methylbenzylammonium) HOISs exhibit more than an order-of-magnitude variation in spin absorption between orthogonal spin polarizations. Strikingly, despite the lack of chiroptical activity, racemic films exhibit a similarly strong spin anisotropy, indicating that global crystallographic chirality is not a prerequisite for CASA. Structural chirality analysis reveals that the CASA is governed by the orientation of local chiral axes associated with the organic cations in HOISs. These results establish molecular chirality as an active design parameter for manipulating spin transport, positioning HOISs as a broadly compelling platform for spin-based functionalities.
Related Concept Videos
Chirality
Chiral objects exhibit a sense of handedness when they interact with another chiral object. For example, our left foot can only fit in the left shoe and not in the right shoe. Achiral objects — objects that have...
Valence Bond Theory
Chirality at Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Sulfur
A consequence of chirality is the need for enantiomeric resolution. While this is theoretically possible for all...
Chirality in Nature
Molecules with Multiple Chiral Centers
Prochirality

