Conjugated Helical Molecules as Chiral Quantum Materials

Typical electronic materials operate by manipulating the flow charged species, electrons and holes. Control over the spins of these charge carriers (spintronics) is becoming an increasingly important field of study to the continued advancement of modern electronics because they offer the opportunity to design more complex electronic properties than those exhibited by traditional electronics by exploiting a diversity of spin states for applications in data storage and information transfer. While spins are typically altered through application of a magnetic field, it has recently been demonstrated that spins can also be reoriented or filtered by injecting electrons and/or holes into materials lacking inversion symmetry; however, reliably accessing such materials remains a challenge. One approach to synthesizing electronics that display the appropriate symmetry to filter spins is to use helical molecules referred to as helicenes. Unfortunately, previous discussions of helicenes have been almost exclusively focused on devices that do not have the appropriate symmetry to select for spin states due to purification challenges or failure of the pure helicenes to crystallize. The goal of this research is to develop strategies to access helicene assemblies that display the appropriate symmetry for applications in spintronics.