TWEEPR – Traveling Wave Enantioselective Electron Paramagnetic Resonance

Research project selected under the 2022 call for proposals

Electronic paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectroscopy is a very powerful technique to study the local environment and the dynamics of spin-carrying entities, like transition metal ion complexes or organic radicals. Many of the systems studied by EPR are chiral, i.e., they exist in two non-superimposable forms (enantiomers) that are each other’s mirror image, particularly in biochemistry where enzymes, metallo-proteins, membranes etc. are chiral subjects of intense EPR activity. EPR is universally believed to be blind to chirality, but we claim that, based on symmetry arguments and model calculations, that EPR in a traveling wave configuration is sensitive to chirality, because of magneto-chiral anisotropy, and we have conceived a dedicated spectrometer to observe this traveling wave enantio-selective EPR (TWEEPR). The TWEEPR project aims to implement this novel spectrometer and to use it to observe TWEEPR on chiral paramagnetic model systems, and to develop the detailed theory to interpret TWEEPR spectra.elementary nano-circuit formed by neighboring NPs and the macro-circuit formed by the NPs assembly.