Pure spin current induced by adiabatic quantum pumping in zigzag-edged graphene nanoribbons

Abstract

We show theoretically that pure spin current can be generated in zigzag edged graphene nanoribbons through the adiabatic pumping by edge selective pumping potentials. The origin of such pure spin current is the spin splitting of the edge localized states, which are oppositely spin polarized at opposite edges. In the proposed device, each edge of the ribbon is covered by two independent time-periodic local gate potentials with a definite phase difference, inducing the edge spin polarized current. When the pumping phase difference is opposite in sign between two edges, the total charge currents is zero and the pure edge spin current is generated.