Abstract
Room-temperature, long-range (300 nm), chirality-induced spin-selective electron conduction is found in chiral metal–organic Cu(II) phenylalanine crystals, using magnetic conductive-probe atomic force microscopy. These crystals are found to be also weakly ferromagnetic and ferroelectric. Notably, the observed ferromagnetism is thermally activated, so that the crystals are antiferromagnetic at low temperatures and become ferromagnetic above ∼50 K. Electron paramagnetic resonance measurements and density functional theory calculations suggest that these unusual magnetic properties result from indirect exchange interaction of the Cu(II) ions through the chiral lattice.
Highlights
Room-temperature, long-range (300 nm), chirality-induced spinselective electron conduction is found in chiral metal−organic Cu(II) phenylalanine crystals, using magnetic conductive-probe atomic force microscopy
Calculations, the unusual magnetic behavior is attributed to an indirect exchange interaction between the Cu(II) ions through the chiral lattice
We showed that bioinspired chiral metal− organic Cu(II) phenylalanine crystals support room-temperature, long-range, chirality-induced spin-selective electron conduction
Summary
Room-temperature, long-range (300 nm), chirality-induced spinselective electron conduction is found in chiral metal−organic Cu(II) phenylalanine crystals, using magnetic conductive-probe atomic force microscopy. These crystals are found to be weakly ferromagnetic and ferroelectric. Ferroelectric behavior has been observed in materials similar to those presently studied,[28,29] but here, we observe a thermally activated ferromagnetic component, occurring at temperatures higher than ∼50 K. This makes the materials potentially weakly multiferroic, that is, possessing a combination of ferroelectric and ferromagnetic properties. It is expected that the combination of chirality and magnetic properties, which exists in the materials studied here, will present interesting effects and will establish chiral metal−organic crystals as promising materials for spin-based devices
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