Journal article
José A. P. M. Devienne, Ziwei Liu, C. Z. Jiang, N. Tosca, Thomas Ginnis, D. Sasselov, Richard J. Harrison, S. Ozturk
2026
2026
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APA
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Devienne, J. A. P. M., Liu, Z., Jiang, C. Z., Tosca, N., Ginnis, T., Sasselov, D., … Ozturk, S. (2026). Prebiotic magnetite enables chirality-magnetic surface feedback.
Chicago/Turabian
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Devienne, José A. P. M., Ziwei Liu, C. Z. Jiang, N. Tosca, Thomas Ginnis, D. Sasselov, Richard J. Harrison, and S. Ozturk. “Prebiotic Magnetite Enables Chirality-Magnetic Surface Feedback” (2026).
MLA
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Devienne, José A. P. M., et al. Prebiotic Magnetite Enables Chirality-Magnetic Surface Feedback. 2026.
BibTeX Click to copy
@article{jos2026a,
title = {Prebiotic magnetite enables chirality-magnetic surface feedback},
year = {2026},
author = {Devienne, José A. P. M. and Liu, Ziwei and Jiang, C. Z. and Tosca, N. and Ginnis, Thomas and Sasselov, D. and Harrison, Richard J. and Ozturk, S.}
}
Abstract
The emergence of biomolecular homochirality requires both an initial symmetry-breaking event and a mechanism to amplify and preserve a chiral imbalance. Magnetic minerals have been shown to function as chiral agents through the chiral-induced spin selectivity (CISS) effect and may have enabled homochirality on early Earth, yet the magnetic properties of magnetite formed under realistic prebiotic conditions remain unexplored. Here we show that magnetite synthesized through two geochemically plausible pathways - UV-driven photo-oxidation and nitrite-mediated oxidation of Fe(II) - produces particles dominated by single-vortex and multi-vortex magnetic domain states. Magnetic measurements and electron microscopy confirm that these populations differ markedly from the nano-fabricated thin-film substrates conventionally used in previous CISS experiments. Using 3D micromagnetic simulations, we demonstrate that single-domain and vortex-state grains undergo irreversible, exchange-driven re-magnetization when interacting with spin-polarized homochiral compounds. This magnetic irreversibility provides a robust mechanism for storing and reinforcing weak chiral bias, suggesting that prebiotic magnetite could have contributed to the emergence and stabilization of persistent chiral bias on the early Earth.