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

Research output: Contribution to journalResearch articleContributedpeer-review

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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.

Details

Original languageEnglish
Article number024711
JournalThe Journal of chemical physics
Volume159
Issue number2
Publication statusPublished - 14 Jul 2023
Peer-reviewedYes

External IDs

Scopus 85164759055
ORCID /0000-0001-8121-8041/work/143073968
WOS 001030399200003
Mendeley 61e1d6c2-34b9-34ea-9b3a-3e497bc05054

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