The external electric field induces Rashba and Zeeman spin splitting in non-polar MXene Lu2CF2 monolayers for spintronics application

Abstract

For the application of the spintronics devices, large Rashba spin splitting and Zeeman spin splitting are required. However, the absence of spin splitting in the non-polar MXene Lu2CT2 (T = F, OH) with mirror symmetry limits the functionality of the spintronics applications. In this paper, by the density functional theory calculation, the effect of the electric field on the electronic properties along with the spin polarization of MXene Lu2CT2 (T = F, OH) are investigated. For Lu2CF2, the electric field can effectively regulate the energy band structures resulting in the indirect-direct band gap transition and semiconductor-metal transition. The spin splitting and spin polarization that are not observed in the situation of the intrinsic systems are established due to the breaking of the mirror symmetry by a suitable external electric field, which is sufficient to support the spintronics functionality. Furthermore, the electric field can effectively control the in-plane Rashba spin splitting and out-of-plane Zeeman spin splitting. The parameters of Rashba and the warping coefficients are comprehensively studied by using the effective k·p model. Therefore, our results provide a possible way to induce and tune Rashba spin splitting and Zeeman spin splitting in the MXene by an external electric field, which is useful for spintronic devices.