Sprecher
Furkan Ozturk
(California Institute of Technology)
Beschreibung
Electron Spin, Chiral Symmetry Breaking, and Life’s Homochirality
Electron spin couples strongly to molecular chirality through the recently discovered phenomenon of chiral-induced spin selectivity. As such, spin-polarized magnetic surfaces, such as magnetite, can function as robust chiral reagents and facilitate asymmetric processes on early Earth’s environments. I will discuss recent experiments that exploit the strong coupling between electron spin and molecular chirality, as well as explain their relation to life’s homochirality - one of the grandest challenges in origin-of-life research since Pasteur’s discovery of molecular chirality more than 175 years ago.