TUD

Recently it was shown [1] that electron transport through systems with helical symmetry shows spin selectivity. Here we present a theoretical investigation of the transport properties through helical molecules placed between magnetic and nonmagnetic leads by using the DFT and NEGF approach. The performed analysis of the data allow us to show that the systems show spin-polarization only because of spin-orbit interaction and the spin polarization is clearly related to the helical symmetry since a change in handedness of the helix changes the sign of the spin-polarization and a linear chain does not display any sizeable polarization.