Spin-dependent transport in armchair graphene nanoribbon structures with edge roughness effects

Abstract

We analyze the spin-dependent transport in single ferromagnetic gate structures based on armchair graphene nanoribbon (GNR) using the non-equilibrium Green's function method in a tight binding model. It is shown that the spin polarized current oscillates as a function of the gate-induced barrier height. For perfect GNRs, the larger the energy band gap, the stronger the oscillation of the spin polarization. However, though the edge roughness of the ribbons tends to enlarge the band gap, it also strongly reduces the conductance which finally degrades the spin polarized current. © 2009 IOP Publishing Ltd.