First-principles study of transport of V doped boron nitride nanotube

We perform first-principles calculations of spin-dependent quantum transport in V doped boron nitride nanotube: the junction of pristine (6,0) boron nitride nanotube in contact with V doped (6,0) boron nitride nanotube electrodes. Large tunnel magnetoresistance and perfect spin filtration effect are obtained. The zero bias tunnel magnetoresistance is found to be several thousand percent, it reduces monotonically to zero with a voltage scale of about 0.65 V, and eventually goes to negative values after the bias of 0.65 V. The ratio of spin injection is above 95% till the bias of 0.85 V and is even as large as 99% for the bias from 0.25 eV to 0.55 eV when the magnetic configurations of two electrodes are parallel. The understanding of the spin-dependent nonequilibrium transport is presented by investigating microscopic details of the transmission coefficients.     

Spin-polarized tunneling in a ferromagnetic graphene junction: Interplay between the exchange interaction and the orbital effect of the magnetic field

The influence of magnetic vector potential barrier (MVPB) on the spin-polarized transport of massless Dirac particles in ferromagnetic graphene is studied theoretically. The phenomenon of Klein tunneling of relativistic particles across a rectangular potential barrier prevents any of the massless fermions from being confined but they can be electrically confined by quantum dots with integrable dynamics (Bardarson et al., 2009) [36]. Utilization of only the in-plane exchange splitting in the ferromagnetic graphene cannot produce 100% spin polarization. This tunneling can be confined using the magnetic vector potential barrier, which leads to high degree of spin polarization. By combining the orbital effect and the Zeeman interaction in graphene junction, it is found that the junction mimics behavior of half-metallic tunneling junction, in which it acts as a metal to particles of one spin orientation but as an insulator or a semiconductor to those of the opposite orientation. The idea of the half-metallic tunneling junction can provide a source of ∼100% spin-polarized current, which is potentially very useful. Adjustment of the position of the Fermi level in ferromagnetic layer by placing a gate voltage on top of the ferromagnetic layer shows that reverse of the orientation of the completely spin-polarized current passing through the junction is controlled by adjusting the gate voltage. These interesting characteristics should lead to a practical gate voltage controlled spin filtering and spin-polarized switching devices as a perfect spin-polarized electron source for graphene-based spintronics.     

Characterizing a high spin magnetic impurity via Andreev reflection spectroscopy

The ground state properties of a high spin magnetic impurity and its interaction with an electronic spin are probed via Andreev reflection. We see that through the charge and spin conductance one can effectively estimate the interaction strength, the ground state spin and magnetic moment of any high spin magnetic impurity. We show how a high spin magnetic impurity at the junction between a normal metal and superconductor can contribute to superconducting spintronics applications. Particularly, while spin conductance is absent below the gap for Ferromagnet-Insulator-Superconductor junctions we show that in the case of a Normal metal-High spin magnetic impurity-Normal Metal-Insulator-Superconductor (NMNIS) junction it is present. Further, it is seen that pure spin conduction can exist without any accompanying charge conduction in the NMNIS junction.     

Spin-dependent transport properties of an armchair boron-phosphide nanoribbon embedded between two graphene nanoribbon electrodes

Using non-equilibrium Green׳s function and ab initio calculations we investigate structural, electronic, and transport properties of a junction consisting of armchair hexagonal boron phosphide nanoribbon (ABPNR) contacted by two semi-infinite electrodes composed of armchair graphene nanoribbons (AGNRs). We consider three different configurations including the pristine AGNR–BP–GNR and substitutions for Iron atoms, namely on phosphorus and boron atoms at one edge of the BP nanoribbon. The spin current polarization in all these cases is extracted for each structure and bias. Such hybrid system is found to exhibit not only significant spin-filter efficiency (SFE) but also tunable negative differential resistance (NDR).     

Gate control of lattice-pseudospin currents in graphene on SW2: Effect of sublattice symmetry breaking and spin–orbit interaction

Strong spin–orbit interaction (SOI) in graphene grown on tungsten disulfide (SW₂) has been recently observed, leading to energy gap opening by SOI. Energy gap in graphene may also be induced by sublattice symmetry breaking (SSB) where energy level in A-sublattice is not equal to that in B-sublattice. SSB-gap may be produced by growing graphene on hexagonal boron nitride or silicon carbide. In this work, we investigate transport property in a SOI/SSB/SOI gapped graphene junction, focusing the effect of interplay of SOI and SSB. We find that, lattice-pseudospin polarization (L-PSP) can be controlled perfectly from +100% to −100% by gate voltage. This is due to the fact that in graphene grown on SW₂, the carriers carry lattice-pseudospin degree of freedom “up and down”. The SSB-gapped graphene exhibits pseudo-ferromagnetism to play the role of lattice-pseudospin filtering barrier. It is also found that the SOI and SSB-gaps in graphene may be measured by characteristic of L-PSP in the junction. The proposed controllable-lattice-pseudospin currents may be applicable for graphene-based pseudospintronics.     

Interfacial spin Hall current in a Josephson junction with Rashba spin—orbit coupling

We theoretically investigate the spin transport properties of the Cooper pairs in a conventional Josephson junction with Rashba spin-orbit coupling considered in one of the superconducting leads.It is found that an angle-resolved spin supercurrent flows through the junction and a nonzero interfacial spin Hall current driven by the superconducting phase difference also appears at the interface.The physical origin of this is that the Rashba spin-orbit coupling can induce a triplet order parameter in the s-wave superconductor.The interfacial spin Hall current dependences on the system parameters are also discussed.     

Electrical control of valley and spin polarized current and tunneling magnetoresistance in a silicene-based magnetic tunnel junction

We investigate the electronic transport in a silicene-based ferromagnetic metal/ferromagnetic insulator/ferromagnetic metal tunnel junction. The results show that the valley and spin transports are strongly dependent on local application of a vertical electric field and effective magnetization configurations of the ferromagnetic layers. In particular, it is found that the fully valley and spin polarized currents can be realized by tuning the external electric field. Furthermore, we also demonstrate that the tunneling magnetoresistance ratio in such a full magnetic junction of silicene is very sensitive to the electric field modulation.     

Pure spin currents generation in magnetic tunnel junctions by means of adiabatic quantum pumping

We study the spin polarized currents generation in a magnetic (ferromagnetic/ferromagnetic) tunnel junction by means of adiabatic quantum pumping. Using a scattering matrix approach, it is shown that a pure spin current can be pumped from one ferromagnetic lead into the adjacent one by adiabatic modulation of the magnetization and the height of the barrier at the interface in absence of external bias voltage. We numerically study the characteristic features of the pure spin current and discuss its behavior for realistic values of the parameters. We show that the generated pure spin current is robust with respect to the variation of the magnetization strength, a very important feature for a realistic device, and that the proposed device can operate close to the optimal pumping regime. An experimental realization of a pure spin current injector is also discussed.     

Bias-controlled spin memory and spin injector scheme in the tunneling junction with a single-molecule magnet

A bias-controlled spin-filter and spin memory is theoretically proposed, which consists of the junction with a singlemolecule magnet sandwiched between the nonmagnetic and ferromagnetic(FM) leads. By applying different voltage pulses Vwriteacross the junction, the spin direction of the single-molecule magnet can be controlled to be parallel or anti-parallel to the magnetization of the FM lead, and the spin direction of SMM can be "read out" either by the magneto-resistance or by the spin current with another series of small voltage pulses V_(probe). It is shown that the polarization of the spin current is extremely high(up to 100%) and can be manipulated by the full-electric manner. This device scheme can be compatible with current technologies and has potential applications in high-density memory devices.     

Spin polarization of the injected carriers in C-doped BN nanotubes

We investigated BN nanotubes with two carbon substitutions for one boron atom and one nitrogen atom based on density functional theory (DFT) with local spin density approximation (LSDA). When the two carbon dopants are separated without C-C bond formation, we found that the injected carriers are spin polarized, although there is no net spin in the neutral systems. Here we call the material as ‘spin polarizer’ which can polarize the carriers passing through.     

Theory of Tunneling Magnetoresistance

Rigorous theory of the tunneling magnetoresistance (TMR) based on the real-space Kubo formula and fully realistic tight-binding bands fitted to an ab initio band structure is described. It is first applied to calculate the TMR of two Co electrodes separated by a vacuum gap. The calculated TMR ratio reaches , 65% in the tunneling regime but can be as high as 280% in the metallic regime when the vacuum gap is of the order of the Co interatomic distance (abrupt domain wall). It is also shown that the spin polarization P of the tunneling current is negative in the metallic regime but becomes positive P , 35% in the tunneling regime. Calculation of the tunneling magnetoresistance of an epitaxial Fe/MgO/Fe(001) junction is also described. The calculated optimistic TMR ratio is in excess of 1000% for an MgO barrier of , 20 atomic planes and the spin polarization of the tunneling current is positive for all MgO thicknesses. It is also found that spin-dependent tunneling in an Fe/MgO/Fe(001) junction is not entirely determined by states at the o point ( k =0) even for MgO thicknesses as large as , 20 atomic planes. Finally, it is demonstrated that the TMR ratio calculated from the Kubo formula remains nonzero when one of the Co electrodes is covered with a copper layer. It is shown that non-zero TMR is due to quantum well states in the Cu layer which do not participate in transport. Since these only occur in the down-spin channel, their loss from transport creates a spin asymmetry of electrons tunneling from a Cu interlayer, i.e. non-zero TMR. Numerical modeling is used to show that diffuse scattering from a random distribution of impurities in the barrier may cause quantum well states to evolve into propagating states, in which case the spin asymmetry of the nonmagnetic layer is lost and with it the TMR.     

硼膜制备工艺、微观结构及其在硼化镁超导约瑟夫森结中的应用

MgB_2材料具备临界转变温度较高、相干长度大、临界电流和临界磁场高等优点,被认为有替代Nb基超导材料的潜力.研究了不同温度下以化学气相沉积法制备的硼(B)薄膜的微观结构.实验结果表明:较低温度沉积的B先驱薄膜为无定形B膜,可以与Mg蒸气反应生成MgB_2超导薄膜;当沉积温度高于550?C时,所得硼薄膜为晶型薄膜;以晶型硼薄膜为先驱膜在镁蒸气中退火,不能生成硼化镁超导薄膜.利用晶型B膜的这一特点,成功制备了以晶型硼薄膜为介质层的硼化镁超导约瑟夫森结.     

含硼分子筛的11B VAS NMR和1H MAS NMR研究

以变角旋转(VAS) NMR方法考察了三配位硼的存在状态,得到其四极作用常数C_q为2.4MHz,电场梯度不对称系数η为0.0.硼引入骨架形成的酸性羟基质子的信号位于2.3ppm,¹H{¹¹B}双共振实验证实其与硼原子的关联很弱.与6.5ppm分子筛吸水峰同时出现的2.7ppm的信号也被认为是吸水的信号,与非骨架铝羟基质子的信号在同一位置,但可通过¹H{²⁷Al}双共振实验加以判别.     

Tunneling magnetoresistance based on a Cr/graphene/Cr magnetotunnel junction

Using the density functional theory and the nonequilibrium Green's function method, we studied the finite-bias quantum transport in a Cr/graphene/Cr magnetotunnel junction(MTJ) constructed by a single graphene layer sandwiched between two semi-infinite Cr(111) electrodes. We found that the tunneling magnetoresistance(TMR) ratio in this MTJ reached108%, which is close to that of a perfect spin filter. Under an external positive bias, we found that the TMR ratio remained constant at 65%, in contrast to Mg O-based MTJs, the TMR ratios of which decrease with increasing bias. These results indicate that the Cr/graphene/Cr MTJ is a promising candidate for spintronics applications.     

影响磁性pn结自旋极化输运特性的因素

利用漂移扩散理论研究了磁性pn结中自旋的输运特性.探讨了外加电压、平衡自旋极化率、外加自旋注入和自旋寿命对磁性pn结电流密度和电阻的影响,讨论了磁性pn结自旋伏特效应与pn结宽度的关系.发现平衡自旋极化率使得不同自旋方向电子具有不同的势垒高度从而能有效调制电流;而外加自旋注入则为磁性pn结提供了非平衡自旋极化电子从而达到对电流的调制作用,同时发现自旋伏特电流随准中性p区宽度减小而增大. 关键词： 磁性pn结 自旋极化率 自旋寿命 自旋伏特效应     

Spin filter effect and large magnetoresistance in the zigzag graphene nanoribbons

The spin filter effect and magnetoresistance (MR) in the graphene nanoribbons with zigzag edges have been investigated by the non-equilibrium Green’s function method. Due to the spin-dependent current blocking effect, the ferromagnetic graphene/normal graphene junction can filter the spin in one direction, so a fully spin-polarized current is found. As the on-site energy μ_R in the right lead goes from negative to positive, the spin-down transmission would suddenly transforms from an `ON’ state to an `OFF’ state, however the spin-up transmission transforms from an `OFF’ state to an `ON’ state, so we can choose the current’s spin polarized direction by tuning μ_R. For the ferromagnetic graphene/ferromagnetic graphene junction the current for the antiparallel magnetization configuration is blocked, a very large MR is obtained. It is expected that these features may serve as a type of useful spintronic devices in future.     

First-principles density-functional calculations on the field emission properties of BN nanocones

The first-principles density-functional theory is used to study the geometrical structures and field emission properties of different boron nitride nanocones with 240 disclination. It is found that the nanocones can be stable under applied electric field and the emission current is sensitively dependent on the tips of nanocones. The nanocones with homonuclear bonds at the tip can introduce additional energy states near Fermi level, which can reduce the ionization potential and increase the emission current of these boron nitride nanocones. This investigation indicates that the boron nitride nanocone can be a promising candidate as a field emission electron source.     

Spin-polarization in a 3-terminal conductor induced by Rashba spin–orbit coupling

We investigate numerically the spin polarization of the current in the presence of Rashba spin–orbit interaction (RSOI) in a 3-terminal conductor. We use equation-of-motion method to simulate the time evolution of the wave packet and focus on single-channel transport. A T-shaped conductor with uniform RSOI proposed by Kiselev and Kim and a Y-shaped conductor with nonuniform RSOI are considered. In the T-shaped conductor, the strength of RSOI is assumed to be uniform. We have found that the spin polarization becomes nearly 100% with little loss of conductance for sufficiently strong spin–orbit coupling. This is due to the spin-dependent group velocity of electrons at the junction which causes the spin separation. In the Y-shaped conductor, the strength of RSOI is modulated perpendicular to the charge current. A spatial gradient of effective magnetic field due to the nonuniform RSOI causes the Stern–Gerlach type spin separation. The direction of the polarization is perpendicular to the current and parallel to the spatial gradient. Again almost 100% spin polarization can be realized by this spin separation.     

Tuning field emission properties of boron nanocones with catalyst concentration

Single crystalline boron nanocones are prepared by using a simple spin spread method in which Fe 3 O 4 nanoparticles are pre-manipulated on Si(111) to form catalyst patterns of different densities.The density of boron nanocones can be tuned by changing the concentration of catalyst nanoparticles.High-resolution transmission electron microscopy analysis shows that the boron nanocone has a β-tetragonal structure with good crystallization.The field emission behaviour is optimal when the spacing distance is close to the nanocone length,which indicates that this simple spin spread method has great potential applications in electron emission nanodevices.     

Increasing the B/N ratio in boron nitride nanoribbons,a possible approach to dilute magnetic semiconductors

Density functional theory (DFT) employing the local spin density approximation and including correlation functionals is used to show that increasing the boron content relative to the nitrogen content in boron nitride nanoribbons can significantly reduce the band gap making the ribbons semiconducting. Armchair ribbons, but not zigzag ribbons, having excess borons are predicted to have a more stable optimized triplet structure than the optimized singlet structure. The triplet structure is predicted to have a higher density of states at the top of the valence band near Fermi level for the spin down state indicating it could be a ferromagnetic semiconductor. The results suggest a possible new approach to developing ferromagnetic semiconductors.