We report on the possibility for a spin valve effect driven by edge defect engineering of zigzag graphene nanoribbons. Based on a mean-field spin unrestricted Hubbard model, electronic band structures and conductance profiles are derived, using a self-consistent scheme to include gate-induced charge density. The use of an external gate is found to trigger a semiconductor-metal transition in clean zigzag graphene nanoribbons, whereas it yields a closure of the spin-split bandgap in the presence of Klein edge defects. These features could be exploited to make novel charge and spin based switches and field effect devices.
@article{arxiv.0910.4043,
title = {Spin Valve Effect in ZigZag Graphene Nanoribbons by Defect Engineering},
author = {Sankaran Lakshmi and Stephan Roche and Gianaurelio Cuniberti},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0910.4043},
year = {2015}
}