Spin-phonon coupling in a double-stranded model of DNA

Mayra Peralta, Steven Feijoo, Solmar Varela, Rafael Gutierrez, Gianaurelio Cuniberti, Vladimiro Mujica, Ernesto Medina

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

2 Scopus citations

Abstract

We address the electron-spin-phonon coupling in an effective model Hamiltonian for DNA to assess its role in spin transfer involved in the Chiral-Induced Spin Selectivity (CISS) effect. The envelope function approach is used to describe semiclassical electron transfer in a tight-binding model of DNA at half filling in the presence of intrinsic spin-orbit coupling. Spin-phonon coupling arises from the orbital-configuration dependence of the spin-orbit interaction. We find spin-phonon coupling only for the acoustic modes, while the optical modes exhibit electron-phonon interaction without coupling to spin. We derive an effective Hamiltonian whose eigenstates carry spin currents that are protected by spin-inactive stretching optical modes. As optical phonons interact more strongly than acoustic phonons, side buckling and tilting optical base modes will be more strongly associated with decoherence, which allows for the two terminal spin filtering effects found in CISS.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number024711
JournalJournal of Chemical Physics
Volume159
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - Jul 14 2023
Externally publishedYes

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Physics and Astronomy
  • Physical and Theoretical Chemistry

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