Chiral Organic Single Crystals as a Platform for Chirality-Induced Spin Selectivity
6 affiliations
- 1State Key Laboratory of Elemento-Organic Chemistry, Frontiers Science Center for New Organic Matter, Haihe Laboratory of Sustainable Chemical Transformations
- 2Academy for Advanced Interdisciplinary Studies, College of Chemistry, Nankai University
- 3State Key Laboratory of Advanced Materials for Intelligent Sensing, Key Laboratory of Organic Integrated Circuit, Ministry of Education & Tianjin Key Laboratory of Molecular Optoelectronic Sciences, Department of Chemistry, Institute of Molecular Aggregation Science
- 4Tianjin University
- 5School of Materials Science and Engineering
- 6National Institute for Advanced Materials, Nankai University
Abstract
The chirality-induced spin selectivity (CISS) effect has attracted increasing attention for its unique ability to generate spin-polarized currents without magnetic components, with promising applications in spintronics, optoelectronics, and electrocatalysis. Although a wide range of chiral materials have been demonstrated to exhibit the CISS effect, most reported systems are based on amorphous films, self-assembled monolayers, or supramolecular assemblies, where structural disorder and aggregative traps compromise reliable evaluation of the CISS effect and obscure the structure-property relationship. Here, we overcome these limitations by constructing high-quality single crystals of chiral BN-embedded double helicenes, which feature a rigid chiral backbone and ordered molecular packing. Using magnetic conductive atomic force microscopy, we show that the single-crystal platform yields significantly improved current uniformity and measurement reproducibility compared with spin-coated thin films. Taking advantage of this enhanced reliability, we systematically investigated spin-selective transport in single crystals with thicknesses ranging from 18 to 330 nm. The spin polarization initially increases rapidly with crystal thickness, reaches a broad maximum, and remains pronounced over transport distances of up to 330 nm. This thickness-dependent behavior provides direct evidence for the cumulative spinselective transport along the long-range ordered structure, thereby distinguishing intrinsic bulk spin polarization from interfacial contributions. Our results thus establish chiral organic single crystals as a robust platform for investigating the CISS effect and unveiling clear structureproperty correlations.
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BibTeX
@misc{li2026chiral,
title = {{Chiral Organic Single Crystals as a Platform for Chirality-Induced Spin Selectivity}},
author = {Wanhui Li and Shaolin Du and Shiyue Sun and Ji-Kun Li and Hao-Han Lv and Guankui Long and Shuaishuai Ding and Xiao-Ye Wang},
howpublished = {ChemRxiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.26434/chemrxiv.15010746/v1},
url = {https://chemrxiv.org/doi/full/10.26434/chemrxiv.15010746/v1},
note = {CC BY-NC-ND},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Chiral Organic Single Crystals as a Platform for Chirality-Induced Spin Selectivity
AU - Wanhui Li
AU - Shaolin Du
AU - Shiyue Sun
AU - Ji-Kun Li
AU - Hao-Han Lv
AU - Guankui Long
AU - Shuaishuai Ding
AU - Xiao-Ye Wang
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/21
PB - ChemRxiv
DO - 10.26434/chemrxiv.15010746/v1
UR - https://chemrxiv.org/doi/full/10.26434/chemrxiv.15010746/v1
AB - The chirality-induced spin selectivity (CISS) effect has attracted increasing attention for its unique ability to generate spin-polarized currents without magnetic components, with promising applications in spintronics, optoelectronics, and electrocatalysis. Although a wide range of chiral materials have been demonstrated to exhibit the CISS effect, most reported systems are based on amorphous films, self-assembled monolayers, or supramolecular assemblies, where structural disorder and aggregative traps compromise reliable evaluation of the CISS effect and obscure the structure-property relationship. Here, we overcome these limitations by constructing high-quality single crystals of chiral BN-embedded double helicenes, which feature a rigid chiral backbone and ordered molecular packing. Using magnetic conductive atomic force microscopy, we show that the single-crystal platform yields significantly improved current uniformity and measurement reproducibility compared with spin-coated thin films. Taking advantage of this enhanced reliability, we systematically investigated spin-selective transport in single crystals with thicknesses ranging from 18 to 330 nm. The spin polarization initially increases rapidly with crystal thickness, reaches a broad maximum, and remains pronounced over transport distances of up to 330 nm. This thickness-dependent behavior provides direct evidence for the cumulative spinselective transport along the long-range ordered structure, thereby distinguishing intrinsic bulk spin polarization from interfacial contributions. Our results thus establish chiral organic single crystals as a robust platform for investigating the CISS effect and unveiling clear structureproperty correlations.
ER -