Spin-polarized currents generated by magnetic Fe atomic chains

Fe-based devices are widely used in spintronics because of high spin-polarization and magnetism. In this work, free-standing Fe atomic chains were proposed to be used as the thinnest wires to generate spin-polarized currents due to the spin-polarized energy bands. By ab initio calculations, the zigzag structure was found more stable than the wide-angle zigzag structure and has higher ratio of spin-up and spin-down currents. By our theoretical prediction, Fe atomic chains have sufficiently long thermal lifetime only at T<=150 K, while C atomic chains are very stable even at T=1000 K. This result means that the spintronic devices based on Fe chains could only work at low temperature. A system constructed by a short Fe chain sandwiched between two graphene electrodes was proposed as a spin-polarized current generator, while a C chain does not have such property. The present work may be instructive and meaningful to further practical applications based on recent technical development on the preparation of metal atomic chains [Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 107, 9055 (2010)].