Strong Spin-Filtering and Spin-Valve Effects in a Molecular V-C60-V Contact

TL;DR

This paper theoretically investigates a C60 molecule in an STM junction with magnetic V tip and adatom, revealing strong spin-filtering and spin-valve effects that could be observed experimentally.

Contribution

It demonstrates the spin-coupling mediated by C60 and its impact on electronic transport, highlighting potential for experimental characterization of magnetism.

Findings

Spin-filtering effect allowing >95% majority-spin electrons.

Conductance change of 86% between parallel and anti-parallel spins.

Potential for STM experiments to characterize spin interactions.

Abstract

Motivated by the recent achievements in manipulation of C60 molecules in STM experiments, we study theoretically the structure and electronic properties of a C60 molecule in an STM-tunneljunction with a magnetic tip and magnetic adatom on a Cu(111) surface from first-principle calculations. For the case of V tip/adatom, we demonstrate how spin-coupling between the magnetic V atoms mediated by the C60 can be observed in the electronic transport, which display a strong spin-filtering effect, allowing mainly majority-spin electrons to pass(>95%). Moreover, we find a significant change in the conductance between parallel and anti-parallel spin polarizations in the junction (86%) which suggests that STM experiments should be able to characterize the magnetism and spin-coupling for these systems.