Dynamical theory of chiral-induced spin selectivity in electron donor-chiral molecule-acceptor systems

Abstract: The chiral-induced spin selectivity (CISS) effect, a phenomenon where the chirality of molecules imparts significant spin selectivity to electron transfer processes, has garnered increasing interest among the chemistry, biology, and physics communities. Although this effect was discovered more than a decade ago, the dynamical process of how electron spin polarization is caused by chiral molecules is still unclear. Here, we propose a dynamical theory of electron transfer in donor-chiral molecule bridge-acceptor systems without electrodes or substrates based on the Lindblad-type master equation. We demonstrate that the molecular spin-orbit coupling generates unequal spin velocities and achieves steady spin polarization with the help of dephasing. Our work elucidates the dynamical process of CISS and may promote the applications of chiral-based spintronic devices.