Ab initio spin-flip conductance of hydrogenated graphene nanoribbons: Spin-orbit interaction and scattering with local impurity spins

TL;DR

This study uses ab initio calculations to analyze spin-dependent conductance in hydrogenated graphene nanoribbons, revealing that exchange interactions dominate spin-flip processes over spin-orbit effects.

Contribution

It introduces a DFT-based transport approach including spin-orbit interaction to evaluate spin-dependent conductance in hydrogenated graphene nanoribbons, highlighting the role of exchange-mediated spin scattering.

Findings

Spin-flip conductance can match spin-conserving conductance in magnitude.

Exchange-mediated spin scattering is the primary mechanism for spin flips.

Spin-orbit interaction has a secondary effect on conductance.

Abstract

We calculate the spin-dependent zero-bias conductance $G_{\sigma\sigma'}$ in armchair graphene nanoribbons with hydrogen adsorbates employing a DFT-based ab initio transport formalism including spin-orbit interaction. We find that the spin-flip conductance $G_{\sigma\bar{\sigma}}$ can reach the same order of magnitude as the spin-conserving one, $G_{\sigma\sigma}$, due to exchange-mediated spin scattering. In contrast, the genuine spin-orbit interaction appears to play a secondary role, only.