Perfect spin-filter and spin-valve in carbon atomic chains

By M. Zeng, L. Shen, Y. Cai, Z. Sha, Y. Feng. 2009

172 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We report ab initio calculations of spin-dependent transport in single atomic carbon chains bridging two zigzag graphene nanoribbon electrodes. Our calculations show that carbon atomic chains coupled to graphene electrodes are perfect spin-filters with almost 100% spin polarization. Moreover, the carbon atomic chains show bias-dependent magnetoresistance as large as 106% which make them perfect spin-valves. These two spin-related properties are independent of the length of carbon chains. The simultaneous occurrence of spin-filter and spin-valve in a single device opens the possibilities of all-carbon composite spintronics.

Subfields: Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Materials Chemistry, Physical and Theoretical Chemistry

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/e6faaf1b50d96970c499e6e21c69d385651d9d8f