Quantum Matter Seminar

Electron Spin, Chiral Symmetry Breaking, and Life's Homochirality

Furkan Ozturk, Assistant Professor of Geobiology and Geochemistry; William H. Hurt Scholar, Geobiology and Geochemistry, Caltech,

Speaker's Bio:
Furkan Ozturk is an Assistant Professor and a William H. Hurt Scholar at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), where he leads the Ozturk Lab (ozturklab.caltech.edu). His research explores the origins of life and the physics of living systems, with a particular focus on molecular chirality, spin physics, and prebiotic chemistry. He received his BSc. in Physics from Bilkent University in 2018 and his Ph.D. in Physics from Harvard University in 2024. Before joining Caltech in 2025, he held independent postdoctoral fellowships at Harvard College Observatory and King’s College, Cambridge.

Electron spin couples strongly to molecular chirality through the recently discovered phenomenon of chiral-induced spin selectivity. As such, spin-polarized magnetic surfaces can function as robust chiral reagents and facilitate asymmetric processes. I will discuss recent experiments that exploit the strong coupling between electron spin and chirality, and explain their relation to life's homochirality—one of the grandest challenges in origin-of-life research since Pasteur's discovery of molecular chirality more than 175 years ago.

Event Sponsors:

Condensed Matter Physics - More events from this Sponsor

For more information, please contact Annika Keating by email at [email protected].

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