No Arabic abstract
By applying density functional theory calculations, we predict that the groundstate of bilayer silicene at certain interlayer distances can be antiferromagnetic. At small electron or hole doping, it becomes half metallic under applied out-of-plane electric field, which can be used to produce fully spin-polarized field-effect-driven current even in the absence of external magnetic field, ferromagnetic substrates, doped magnetic ions, or spin-orbital coupling. Our finding points out a new route to overcome the major challenge of spintronics.
We propose a model of spin-polarized-current state for electrons in bilayer graphene. The model resolves the puzzles as revealed by experiments that (a) the energy gap $E_{rm gap}$ of the insulating ground state at the charge neutrality point (CNP) can be closed by a perpendicular electric field of either polarity, (b) $E_{rm gap}$ increases significantly with increasing the magnetic field $B$, (c) the particle-hole spectrum is asymmetric in the presence of $B$, (d) there is a peak structure in the electric conductivity at small $B$ at the CNP, and (e) there are quantum Hall states stemming from lifting of degeneracy in the lowest Landau level. The model predicts that the ground state of the system close to the CNP is a ferrimagnet at finite $B$ and the Hall current is spin polarized.
A mechanism to generate a spin-polarized current in a two-terminal zigzag silicene nanoribbon is predicted. As a weak local exchange field that is parallel to the surface of silicene is applied on one of edges of the silicene nanoribbon, a gap is opened in the corresponding gapless edge states but another pair of gapless edge states with opposite spin are still protected by the time-reversal symmetry. Hence, a spin-polarized current can be induced in the gap opened by the local exchange field in this two-terminal system. What is important is that the spin-polarized current can be obtained even in the absence of Rashba spin-orbit coupling and in the case of the very weak exchange filed. That is to say, the mechanism to generate the spin-polarized currents can be easily realized experimentally.We also find that the spin-polarized current is insensitive to weak disorder.
Topological semimetals in ferromagnetic materials have attracted enormous attention due to the potential applications in spintronics. Using the first-principles density functional theory together with an effective lattice model, here we present a new family of topological semimetals with a fully spin-polarized nodal loop in alkaline-metal monochalcogenide $MX$ ($M$ = Li, Na, K, Rb, Cs; $X$ = S, Se, Te) monolayers. The half-metallic ferromagnetism can be established in $MX$ monolayers, in which one nodal loop formed by two crossing bands with the same spin components is found at the Fermi energy. This nodal loop half-metal survives even when considering the spin-orbit coupling owing to the symmetry protection provided by the $mathcal{M}_{z}$ mirror plane. The quantum anomalous Hall state and Weyl-like semimetal in this system can be also achieved by rotating the spin from the out-of-plane to the in-plane direction. The $MX$ monolayers hosting rich topological phases thus offer an excellent materials platform for realizing the advanced spintronics concepts.
The magnetic reversal by spin-polarized current of a magnetic junction consisting of two ferromagnetic layers and a nonmagnetic spacer in between is considered. Initially, the free layer is magnetized antiparallel to the pinned layer by an external magnetic field. Under current flowing, a nonequilibrium spin polarization appears in the free layer. The interaction between the injected spins and the lattice leads to instability of the antiparallel orientation at the high enough current density and to switching the free layer to a state with magnetization parallel to one in the pinned layer. If the free layer thickness and the external magnetic field strength are large enough, then a nonuniform switching is favorable, so that only a part of the free layer near the injector switches. Such a switching is accompanied with appearance of a domain wall between the switched and non-switched regions. The domain wall can oscillate around the equilibrium position with some natural frequency depending on the external magnetic field.
Using a four-band Hamiltonian, we study the phase boundary of spin-polarized-current state (SPCS) of interacting electrons in bilayer graphene. The model of spin-polarized-current state has previously been shown to resolve a number of experimental puzzles in bilayer graphene. The phase boundaries of the SPCS with and without the external voltage between the two layers are obtained in this work. An unusual phase boundary where there are two transition temperatures for a given carrier concentration is found at finite external voltage. The physics of this phenomenon is explained.