Strain-induced modulation of magnetic interactions in graphene

TL;DR

This paper investigates how uniaxial strain affects magnetic interactions in graphene, revealing tunable behaviors like amplification and suppression, which could enable advanced spintronic applications.

Contribution

It provides a combined analytic and numerical analysis of strain effects on RKKY interactions in graphene, offering explicit predictions for magnetic behavior modulation.

Findings

Strain can amplify, suppress, or cause oscillations in magnetic interactions.

Analytic expressions predict strain-dependent magnetic behaviors.

Manipulating strain enables control over magnetic coupling in graphene.

Abstract

The ease with which the physical properties of graphene can be tuned suggests a wide range of possible applications. Recently, strain engineering of these properties has been of particular interest. Possible spintronic applications of magnetically doped graphene systems have motivated recent theoretical investigations of the so-called Ruderman-Kittel-Kasuya-Yosida (RKKY) interaction between localized moments in graphene. In this work a combination of analytic and numerical techniques are used to examine the effects of uniaxial strain on such an interaction. A range of interesting features are uncovered depending on the separation and strain directions. Amplification, suppression, and oscillatory behavior are reported as a function of the strain and mathematically transparent expressions predicting these features are derived. Since a wide range of effects, including overall moment formation and magnetotransport response, are underpinned by such interactions we predict that the ability to manipulate the coupling by applying strain may lead to interesting spintronic applications.