English

Proposal for a dual spin filter based on [VO(C$_3$S$_4$O)$_2$]$^{2-}$

Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics 2017-12-19 v1

Abstract

Polynuclear magnetic molecules often present dense transmission spectra with many overlapping conduction spin channels. Single-metal complexes display a sparser density of states, which in the presence of a fixed external magnetic field makes them interesting candidates for spin filtering. Here we perform a DFT study of a family of bis- and tris-dithiolate vanadium complexes sandwiched between Au(111) electrodes and demonstrate that [VO(C3_3S4_4O)2_2]2^{2-} can behave as a dual spin filter. This means that an external stimulus can switch between the selective transmission of spin-up and spin-down carriers. By using an electrostatic gate as external stimulus we show that the onset for the spin-up conductance is at a voltage Vg_g = -0.51 V but a small shift to Vg_g = -0.63 V is capable of activating spin-down transport. For both cases, we estimate a large low-bias conductance (approx. 2 {\mu}S at Vbias < 50 mV) with excellent spin selectivity (> 99.5%). We conclude by commenting on the general molecular requirements for the chemical design of further such spintronics components.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1712.06331,
  title  = {Proposal for a dual spin filter based on [VO(C$_3$S$_4$O)$_2$]$^{2-}$},
  author = {Salvador Cardona-Serra and Alejandro Gaita-Ariño and Efrén Navarro-Moratalla and Stefano Sanvito},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1712.06331},
  year   = {2017}
}
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