Organic radicals as spin filters

Abstract

Molecular spintronics has received extensive interest in recent years. Due to their favorable properties such as long spin coherence lengths and an amenability to fine-tuning via chemical substituents, organic materials play a prominent role in this field. Here we discuss how organic radicals may act as spin filters in the coherent tunneling regime and how they may be tuned to filter either majority- or minority-spin electrons by adding electron-donating or -withdrawing substituents. For a set of benzene-based model systems, we identify dips in the spin-resolved transmission, which may be caused by destructive interference, as a desirable feature when aiming for efficient spin filtering. Furthermore, the qualitative predictions made for our model systems are shown to be transferable to larger stable radicals.