cfaed Seminar Series

Prof. Vladimiro Mujica , Arizona State University, School of Molecular Sciences, Tempe, United States Yachay Tech, School of Chemical Sciences and Engineering, Urcuqui, Ecuador

Chirality-Induced Spin Selectivity (CISS) and Electron Transfer in Biological Systems

07.09.2017 (Thursday) , 13:00 - 14:00
(HAL), Seminar Room 115 , Hallwachsstr. 3

Chiral molecules are ubiquitously used in biological systems for essential electron transfer (ET) reactions. It has been both a theoretical and experimental challenge to understand the importance of chirality and spin-orbit interaction in the high efficiency of long-range ET and in explaining the remarkable fact that many relevant ET reactions in biological systems are almost temperature-independent, a fact impossible to reconcile with the conventional Markus-type theory.

We will discuss our recent work in understanding how the CISS effect, which has received considerable attention in the literature, together with angular momentum conservation rules involved in electron-phonon interaction, can be invoked to understand the unusual distance and temperature dependence of ET reactions in biological systems.

Vladimiro Mujica's undergraduate education in chemistry was from the Universidad de Concepción in Chile and the Universidad Central de Venezuela in Venezuela. He received a Ph.D. degree in quantum chemistry from Uppsala University in Sweden in 1985. He was a visiting professor at the University of Tel Aviv, Professor of chemistry at the Universidad Central de Venezuela and Research Professor at Northwestern University. In 2009 he joined the faculty at Alabama State University. His research interests are in the areas of theoretical chemistry, nanoscience, electron transfer, solar energy, quantum relaxation theory and nanophotonics.

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