Strain-tuning of vacancy-induced magnetism in graphene nanoribbons

TL;DR

This paper explores how applying uniaxial strain to graphene nanoribbons can significantly tune the magnetic properties induced by vacancies, with implications for spintronic device development.

Contribution

It introduces a model demonstrating strain-controlled tuning of vacancy-induced magnetism in graphene nanoribbons, advancing the understanding of strain effects on localized electronic states.

Findings

Exchange splitting can be widely tuned by strain.

Singlet-triplet splitting for two vacancies is strain-dependent.

Strain tuning is crucial for spintronic applications.

Abstract

Vacancies in graphene lead to the appearance of localized electronic states with non-vanishing spin moments. Using a mean-field Hubbard model and an effective double-quantum dot description we investigate the influence of strain on localization and magnetic properties of the vacancy-induced states in semiconducting armchair nanoribbons. We find that the exchange splitting of a single vacancy and the singlet-triplet splitting for two vacancies can be widely tuned by applying uniaxial strain, which is crucial for spintronic applications.