First-principles study of spin transport in BN doped CrO2–graphene–CrO2 magnetic tunnel junction

Abstract

We investigate the spin-dependent electronic transport properties of Magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ) consisting of Boron (B) and Nitrogen (N) doped graphene nanosheet sandwiched between two CrO2 half-metallic–ferromagnet (HMF) electrodes. A large value of tunnel magnetoresistance (TMR) and perfect spin filtration was obtained as compared to un-doped graphene MTJ structures reported in past. The use of HMF electrodes further raises the TMR and improves the spin filtration in comparison to MTJs with metallic and ferromagnetic (FM) electrodes, which suggest HMF electrodes as a suitable candidate over metallic and FM electrodes for implementing graphene sheet based MTJs. A high value of TMR ∼100% is obtained at zero bias voltage, which remains constantly high at higher bias voltages in the range of 0 V to 1 V. The higher value of TMR and better (near perfect) spin filtration abilities suggest its usefulness in spin-valves and other spintronics based applications. The spin-dependent non-equilibrium transport is also investigated by analyzing the bias dependent transmission coefficients.