Temperature effects on the conductance, spin-valley polarization and tunneling magnetoresistance of single magnetic silicene junctions

Abstract

Magnetic silicene junctions are versatile structures with spin-valley polarization and magnetoresistive capabilities. Here, we investigate the temperature effects on the transport properties of single magnetic silicene junctions. We use the transfer matrix method and the Landauer–Büttiker formalism to calculate the transmittance, conductance, spin-valley polarization and tunneling magnetoresistance (TMR). We studied the case for T = 0 K, finding the specific parameters where the spin-valley polarization and the TMR reach optimized values. Regarding the temperature effects, we find that its impact is not the same on the different transport properties. In the case of the conductance, depending on the spin-valley configuration the resonant peaks disappear at different temperatures. The spin polarization persists at a considerable value up to T = 80 K, contrary to the valley polarization which is more susceptible to the temperature effects. In addition, a stepwise spin-valley polarization can be achieved at low temperature. The TMR is attenuated considerably as the temperature rises, decreasing more than two orders of magnitude after T = 20 K. These findings indicate that in order to preserve the spin-valley polarization and magnetoresistive capabilities of magnetic silicene junctions is fundamental to modulate the temperature adequately.