Controllable Spin-Charge Transport in Strained Graphene Nanoribbon Devices

TL;DR

This paper explores how uniaxial strain, spin-orbit coupling, and staggered potentials influence spin-charge transport in graphene nanoribbons, revealing tunable conductance oscillations and edge state behaviors for quantum device applications.

Contribution

It introduces a theoretical framework showing how strain direction and magnitude can control electronic and spin transport properties in graphene nanoribbons, including edge state manipulation.

Findings

Conductance oscillates with Rashba SOC similar to a Datta-Das transistor.

Strain affects conductance differently in ZGNR and AGNR depending on magnitude and direction.

Edge states can be controlled via staggered potential smoothness, observable by STM.

Abstract

We theoretically investigate the spin-charge transport in two-terminal device of graphene nanoribbons in the presence of an uniform uniaxial strain, spin-orbit coupling, exchange field and smooth staggered potential. We show that the direction of applied strain can efficiently tune strain-strength induced oscillation of band-gap of armchair graphene nanoribbon (AGNR). It is also found that electronic conductance in both AGNR and zigzag graphene nanoribbons (ZGNRs) oscillates with Rashba spin-orbit coupling akin to the Datta-Das field effect transistor. Two distinct strain response regimes of electronic conductance as function of spin-orbit couplings (SOC) magnitude are found. In the regime of small strain, conductance of ZGNR presents stronger strain dependence along the longitudinal direction of strain. Whereas for high values of strain shows larger effect for the transversal direction. Furthermore, the local density of states (LDOS) shows that depending on the smoothness of the staggered potential, the edge state of AGNR can either emerge or be suppressed. These emerging states can be determined experimentally by performing spatially scanning tunneling microscope or by scanning tunneling spectroscopy. Our findings open up new paradigms of manipulation and control of strained graphene based nanostructure for application on novel topological quantum devices.