Spin diode based on a single-wall carbon nanotube

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that a single-wall carbon nanotube connected to ferromagnetic and nonmagnetic leads can function as a controllable spin diode, exhibiting asymmetric spin and charge currents influenced by bias and gate voltage.

Contribution

It introduces a novel spin diode device based on a single-wall carbon nanotube with asymmetric current flow controlled by magnetic and electrical gating.

Findings

Spin and charge currents are highly asymmetric with bias reversal.

The device's diode behavior can be tuned by a gate voltage.

Effective spin diode operation demonstrated with coupled ferromagnetic and nonmagnetic leads.

Abstract

Electronic transport through a single-wall metallic carbon nanotube weakly coupled to one ferromagnetic and one nonmagnetic lead is analyzed in the sequential tunneling limit. It is shown that both the spin and charge currents flowing through such systems are highly asymmetric with respect to the bias reversal. As a consequence, nanotubes coupled to one nonmagnetic and one ferromagnetic lead can be effectively used as spin diodes whose functionality can be additionally controlled by a gate voltage.