Redox control of magnetic transport properties of a single anthraquinone molecule with different contacted geometries. (March 2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Fan, Zhi-Qiang; Sun, Wei-Yu; Jiang, Xiang-Wei; Zhang, Zhen-Hua; Deng, Xiao-Qing; Tang, Gui-Ping; Xie, Hai-Qing; Long, Meng-Qiu
• Is Part Of: Carbon. Volume 113(2017)
• Page Start: 18
• Page End: 25
• Publication Date: 2017-03
• Subjects: Carbon -- Periodicals; Carbone -- Périodiques; Koolstof; Toepassingen; Electronic journals; 546.681
• DOI: 10.1016/j.carbon.2016.11.021
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0008-6223

Abstract

Abstract: Controlling magnetic transport through a single molecule remains one of the most fundamental challenges of spin electronics. Here, we investigate the effects of the redox reaction on the magnetic transport properties of a single anthraquinone (AQ) molecule connected to zigzag graphene nanoribbon electrodes by using the non-equilibrium Green's function formalism with density functional theory. Two kinds of contacted types, isomeric AQ-14 and AQ-15, are considered in this work. The results show the excellent spin-filtering with 100% spin filtering efficiency can be found in AQ-14 molecular device. Redox reaction on the molecule doesn't affect its spin filtering behavior. After the contacted type changing, the spin-filtering behavior is only found in AQ-15 molecular device at the reduced state. When the molecule is oxidized, the α-spin current of the device is reduced dramatically leading to the absence of the spin-filtering behavior. More importantly, the on-off of the α-spin electronic conductance of AQ-15 induced by redox reaction can allow it be designed as a spin current switching. Graphical abstract: