Freestanding {\chi}_3-Borophene Nanoribbons: A Density Functional Theory Investigation

TL;DR

This study uses density functional theory to explore the stability, electronic, and magnetic properties of freestanding { extbackslash chi}_3-borophene nanoribbons, revealing edge-dependent behaviors and potential for spintronic applications.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive theoretical analysis of { extbackslash chi}_3-borophene nanoribbons, highlighting how edge configurations influence their properties and identifying promising magnetic structures for spintronics.

Findings

YBNRs can be magnetic or nonmagnetic depending on edge shape.

10% of YBNRs exhibit asymmetric edge polarization leading to spin degeneracy loss.

40% of YBNRs have a magnetic edge suitable for spintronic devices.

Abstract

Experimentally observation of borophene nanoribbons (BNRs) motivated us to carry out a comprehensive investigation on BNRs, decomposed from {\chi}_3 sheet, using density functional theory. Our results show that the stability and also the electrical and magnetic properties of the ribbons are strongly dependent on the edge configuration. We have studied two categories of ribbons: XBNRs, and YBNRs. The first one is a nonmagnetic metal with armchair shape edge, while YBNRs can be magnetic or nonmagnetic related to the edge shape. YBNRs have four different edge types and we show that two of them are magnetic ( a- and b-type edges) but others are nonmagnetic (c- and d-type edges). There are 10 distinct configurations by arranging the different edges of YBNRs. 10 percent of YBNRs are polarized asymmetrically at the edges leading to the loss of degeneracy of spin-up and spin-down bands in the antiferromagnetic configuration. 40 percent of YBNRs have one magnetic edge which can be a promising candidate for spintronic applications due to the separation of the spin in the real space in addition to the energy space. Electronic transmission properties of the ribbons are also studied and found that transmission channels are suppressed in edges of XBNRs due to electron localization.