Antiferromagnetic spin valve based on a heterostructure of two-dimensional hexagonal crystals

Abstract

Spin valves consisting of heterostructures of single-layer hexagonal crystal on an antiferromagnetic substrate or of bilayer hexagonal crystal intercalated between two (anti)ferromagnetic insulators, with the current-in-plane geometry, are proposed. The two-dimensional hexagonal crystals such as graphene, silicene, germanene, and stanene are modeled by the tight binding model of honeycomb lattice. The magnetization orientation of the antiferromagnetic substrate(s) controls the band gap and topological properties of bulk, which in turn control the transport of three types of spin valve geometries: (i) the in-plane transport of bulk; (ii) the transport of topological edge states along nanoribbon with bulk gap; (iii) the transport of chiral edge state along domain wall. The heterostructures are investigated by a tight binding model with an (anti)ferromagnetic exchange field, Hubbard interaction and(or) spin-orbital coupling. For the first type of spin valve geometry, the Hubbard interaction could enlarged the effective band gap of bulk, which in turn improve the sensitivity of the spin valves to the antiferromagnetic exchange field. For the second and third types of spin valve geometries, the topological phase diagrams of varying types of heterostructures with spin-orbital coupling serve as guideline for designing the spin valve. The coexistence of the Hubbard interaction and the spin-orbital coupling could enlarge the topological gap in bulk and improve the quality of the chiral edge states at the domain walls between regions with different topological numbers.