Semiconductor-to-metallic spin-filtering and positive and negative magnetoresistance effects in C3N with nickel electrodes

Abstract

Abstract Carbon-based spintronic devices have attracted extensive attention recently because they have long spin relaxation times and lengths. As a new member of the carbon material family, C3N may have great application prospects in the field of spintronics. Though a previous work proposed the model of spintronic devices based on bare C3N nanoribbons, these devices are difficult to implement experimentally. This is due to the fact that edge reconstruction will occur in the bare C3N nanoribbons. In this work, we systematically investigate the spin-polarized properties of 2D C3N sheet and its corresponding hydrogen-passivated nanoribbons with ferromagnetic Ni electrodes. Semiconductor-to-metallic spin-filtering and positive magnetoresistance effect are observed in 2D C3N sheet stacked on top of the Ni electrodes. Especially impressive is the enhancement of spin-polarization efficiency and the emergence of negative magnetoresistance effect after the 2D C3N sheet is converted into hydrogen-passivated nanoribbons. These results indicate that C3N has strong potential for nanoscale spintronics applications.