Research Overview
Professor Waldeck's research program uses methods of spectroscopy, electrochemistry, and microscopy to examine the nature of the Chiral-Induced Spin Selectivity (CISS) effect and to explore ways in which it can be exploited technologically. First discovered in 1999, CISS refers to the preference for a chiral molecule or chiral material to preferentially transmit electrons of one spin orientation over that of the other. This spin-filtering of electron currents has important implications for electron transfer and electrochemical processes. In addition to spin-filtered currents, charge displacement currents in chiral molecules are spin-polarized, and this has important implications for enantioselective intermolecular interactions.