Dirac half-semimetallicity and antiferromagnetism in graphene nanoribbon/Hexagonal boron nitride heterojunctions
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Supporting information
Accepted version
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Half-metals have been envisioned as active components in spintronic devices by virtue of their completely spin-polarized electrical currents. Actual materials hosting half-metallic phases, however, remain scarce. Here, we predict that recently fabricated heterojunctions of zigzag nanoribbons embedded in two-dimensional hexagonal boron nitride are half-semimetallic, featuring fully spin-polarized Dirac points at the Fermi level. The half-semimetallicity originates from the transfer of charges from hexagonal boron nitride to the embedded graphene nanoribbon. These charges give rise to opposite energy shifts of the states residing at the two edges, while preserving their intrinsic antiferromagnetic exchange coupling. Upon doping, an antiferromagnetic-to-ferrimagnetic phase transition occurs in these heterojunctions, with the sign of the excess charge controlling the spatial localization of the net magnetic moments. Our findings demonstrate that such heterojunctions realize tunable one-dimensional conducting channels of spin-polarized Dirac fermions seamlessly integrated into a two-dimensional insulator, thus holding promise for the development of carbon-based spintronics.
Date Issued
2023-07-26
Date Acceptance
2023-07-04
Citation
Nano Letters: a journal dedicated to nanoscience and nanotechnology, 2023, 23 (14), pp.6698-6704
ISSN
1530-6984
Publisher
American Chemical Society
Start Page
6698
End Page
6704
Journal / Book Title
Nano Letters: a journal dedicated to nanoscience and nanotechnology
Volume
23
Issue
14
Copyright Statement
Copyright © 2023 American Chemical Society. This document is the Accepted Manuscript version of a Published Work that appeared in final form in Nano Lett. 2023, after peer review and technical editing by the publisher. To access the final edited and published work see https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.nanolett.3c01940
Identifier
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37459271
Subjects
antiferromagnetism
graphene nanoribbons
half-semimetallicity
spintronics
Publication Status
Published
Coverage Spatial
United States
Date Publish Online
2023-07-17