Intercalated phosphorene for improved spintronic applications

TL;DR

This study explores how intercalating phosphorene with nitrogen, lithium, and calcium alters its electronic and magnetic properties, enhancing its potential for spintronic applications through density functional theory analysis.

Contribution

It introduces a novel approach of intercalating phosphorene with different elements to improve its spintronic properties, supported by computational analysis.

Findings

Intercalation induces a difference in spin densities despite a vanishing band gap.

Spintronic order parameter increases with higher intercalant density.

Heavier intercalants improve spintronic performance.

Abstract

In this work we study the intercalation of monolayer phosphorene with nitrogen, lithium and calcium for exploring prospects of spintronic applications. The electronic and the magnetic properties of the intercalated structure are investigated via density functional theory to obtain the band structure and the spin polarized density of states. Albeit the band structure data show vanishing band gap, a noticeable difference emerges in the densities of the up and the down spin states induced by the intercalants. To evaluate the performance of the intercalated phosphorene, the spintronic order parameter, measuring the asymmetry among the up and the down spin densities of states, is computed which clearly shows evolution of improved spintronic properties at large intercalant densities. Further, larger atomic numbers of the intercalants seem to aid the performance of phosphorene as a spintronic material.