Electron spin inversion in fluorinated graphene nanoribbons

Abstract

We consider a dilute fluorinated graphene nanoribbon as a spin-active element. The fluorine adatoms introduce a local spin-orbit Rashba interaction that induces spin-precession for electron passing by. In the absence of the external magnetic field the transport is dominated by multiple scattering by adatoms which cancels the spin precession effects, since the direction of the spin precession depends on the electron momentum. Accumulation of the spin precession effects is possible provided that the Fermi level electron passes many times near the same adatom with the same momentum. In order to arrange for these conditions a circular n-p junction can be introduced to the ribbon by e.g. potential of the tip of an atomic force microscope. In the quantum Hall conditions the electron current gets confined along the junction. The electron spin interaction with the local Rashba field changes with the lifetime of the quasi-bound states that is controlled with the coupling of the junction to the edge of the ribbon. We demonstrate that the spin-flip probability can be increased in this manner by as much as three orders of magnitude.