Spin-charge transport properties for graphene/graphyne zigzag-edged nanoribbon heterojunctions: A first-principles study

Graphene and graphyne hold great potential for spintronic device applications due to their exceptionally good electrical and mechanical properties in the pristine form. Recently, considering these 2D carbon allotropes have similar bond lengths and unit cell shapes, ensuring a perfectly matched interface between them and construction of graphene/graphyne heterojunctions feasible. To this end, we study the spin-charge transport properties for monolayer graphene/graphyne zigzag-edged nanoribbon heterojunctions by employing the ab initio calculations, where two types of g-and (6,6,12)-graphynes are considered, respectively. Our important result here is that these heterojunctions can exhibit an interesting variation of magnetoresistane by applying ferromagnetic stripes or external magnetic fields onto the ribbons to initially orient their spin configuration. Specifically, the magnetoresistance ratio can be up to 104% for graphene/g-graphyne heterojunction, but only 300% for the graphene/(6,6,12)-graphyne one. In addition, the effects of spin-filtering and negative differential resistance are also observed in those heterojunctions. The maximum of spin filtering efficiency can be up to 99%. The mechanisms are revealed and analyzed by the connection of these effects to the evolution of the spin-resolved electron transmission spectra and pathways around the Fermi level at zero bias. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.