Manipulating the fully spin-polarized edge currents in graphene ribbon

TL;DR

This paper investigates how to control fully spin-polarized edge currents in graphene ribbons using magnetic fields and gate voltages, proposing a three-terminal device for potential spintronic applications.

Contribution

It introduces a numerical study of manipulating spin-polarized edge states in graphene with a novel device design for spin transport.

Findings

Fully spin-polarized edge currents can be controlled by gate voltage.

A three-terminal device can export spin-polarized currents.

Potential applications in spin-based nanodevices.

Abstract

Electron fully spin-polarized edge states in graphene emerged at the interfaces of a nonuniform magnetic field are studied numerically in a tight-binding model, with both the orbital and Zeeman-splitting effects of magnetic field considered. We show that the fully spin-polarized currents can be manipulated by a gate voltage. In order to make use of the fully spin-polarized currents in the spin related transport, a three-terminal experiment is designed and expected to export the fully spin-polarized currents. This may have important applications in spin based nanodevices.