Armchair graphene nanoribbon-based spin caloritronics

Armchair graphene nanoribbons are considered unsuitable for spin caloritronic applications, due to the lack of intrinsic magnetism. Inspired by the progress on fabricating carbon nanotubes with Janus edges Bets et al. (2019) [26], we construct graphene nanoribbons with Janus edges, where one edge is armchair type and the other one possesses triangular protrusions with zigzag-armchair or zigzag-zigzag sub-edges. By first-principles calculations, Spin Seebeck effect is found. Further analysis shows that, it is resulted from the difference of Fermi distributions between the two electrodes, which is triggered by temperature difference, and the peculiar transmission spectra, where two transmission peaks with opposite spins reside discretely on both sides of EF. These two peaks are contributed by the corresponding bands with opposite spins above and below EF respectively, which are induced by the sub-edges. We believe our findings would be useful in developing graphene-based spin caloritronics. (c) 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

In this study, we found the Spin Seebeck effect by constructing graphene nanoribbons with Janus edges. Further analysis revealed that this effect was due to the difference in Fermi distributions between the two electrodes, triggered by temperature difference, and the unique transmission spectra where two transmission peaks with opposite spins reside on both sides of EF.