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Title: Mechanism of enantiomer-selective adsorption on magnetized surfaces
Plain: If mirror-image molecules really stick differently to a magnet depending on its direction, some interaction between the molecule's handedness and the electron spins in the magnet must cause it. Which interaction does so is not known.
Precise: Given an enantiospecific difference in adsorption rate on perpendicularly magnetized ferromagnetic films, identify the mechanism (transient spin-dependent charge polarization of the molecule during approach followed by exchange interaction with the surface, or another spin-dependent interaction) and compute the size of the rate difference from a microscopic model. An answer is a calculation of spin-dependent adsorption energetics or kinetics that reproduces the measured effect size and its dependence on molecular length.
Settled by: First-principles or model calculations of spin-dependent adsorption compared with replicated adsorption-rate measurements.
Kind: well-posed
Answer type: mechanism
References: (empty)
Literature status: open
Status note: (empty)
Posed since: (empty)