Anderson Localization Enhanced Spin Selective Transport of Electrons in DNA

Recent experiments revealed the unusual strong spin effects with high spin selective transmission of electrons in double-stranded DNA. We propose a new mechanism that the strong spin effects could be understood in terms of the combination of the chiral structure, spin-orbit coupling, and especially spin-dependent Anderson localization.The presence of chiral structure and spin-orbit coupling of DNA induce weak Fermi energy splitting between two spin polarization states. The intrinsic Anderson localization in generic DNA molecules may result in remarkable enhancement of the spin selective transport. In particular, these two spin states with energy splitting have different localization lengths.Spin up/down channel may have shorter/longer localization length so that relatively less/more spin up/down electrons may tunnel through the system. In addition, the strong length dependence of spin selectivity observed in experiments can be naturally understood. Anderson localization enhanced spin selectivity effect may provide a deeper understanding of spin-selective processes in molecular spintronics and biological systems.