CISS effect: Magnetocurrent-voltage characteristics with Coulomb interactions. II

Mechanism for Electrostatically Generated Magnetoresistance in Chiral Systems without Spin-Dependent Transport

Significant attention has been drawn to electronic transport in chiral materials coupled to ferromagnets in the chirality-induced spin selectivity (CISS) effect. A large magnetoresistance (MR) is usually observed, which is widely interpreted to originate from spin (dependent) transport. However, there are severe discrepancies between the experimental results and the theoretical interpretations, most notably the apparent failure of the Onsager reciprocity relations in the linear response regime. We provide an alternative mechanism for the two terminal MR in chiral systems coupled to a ferromagnet. For this, we point out that it was observed experimentally that the electrostatic contact potential of chiral materials on a ferromagnet depends on the magnetization direction and chirality. The mechanism that we provide causes the transport barrier to be modified by the magnetization direction, already in equilibrium, in the absence of a bias current. This strongly alters the charge transport through and over the barrier, not requiring spin transport. This provides a mechanism that allows the linear response resistance to be sensitive to the magnetization direction and also explains the failure of the Onsager reciprocity relations. We propose experimental configurations to confirm our alternative mechanism for MR.

Comparing Electrical Magnetochiral Anisotropy and Chirality-Induced Spin Selectivity

The combination of chirality and magnetism has steadily grown over the past decennia into an area of intense research that evolves around two distinct manifestations and in two nonoverlapping communities: electrical magnetochiral anisotropy (eMChA) and chirality-induced spin-selectivity (CISS). Here, we discuss the similarities and differences of these two effects. Whereas the original CISS reports suggest an intimate relation with eMChA, magnetoresistance (MR) results on two-terminal chiral devices attributed to CISS have symmetry properties that are different from those of eMChA. At the same time, the magnitudes of CISS MR and eMChA turn out to be similar when normalized to current density and spin polarization, suggesting a common underlying mechanism.