Electrically controllable spin transport in bilayer graphene with Rashba spin-orbit interaction

Publication date: Available online 14 June 2019Source: Physics Letters AAuthor(s): Qingtian Zhang, Junsong Jiang, Kwok Sum ChanAbstractWe study the spin transport in bilayer graphene nanoribbons (BGNs) in the presence of Rashba spin-orbit interaction (SOI) and external gate voltages. It is found that the spin polarization can be significantly enhanced by the interlayer asymmetry or longitudinal mirror asymmetry produced by external gate voltages. Rashba SOI alone in BGNs can only generate current with spin polarization along the in-plane y direction, but the polarization components can be found along the x, y and z directions when a gate voltage is applied. High spin polarization with flexible orientation is obtained in the proposed device. Our findings shed new light on the generation of highly spin-polarized current in BGNs without external magnetic fields, which could have useful applications in spintronics device design.
Source: Physics Letters A - Category: Physics Source Type: research