Effect of single magnetic atom on spin-polarized transport of armchair graphene nanoribbons

Using a perturbative method, the influence of a single magnetic impurity on the spin-polarized current flowing through a metallic armchair graphene nanoribbon is investigated theoretically. It is shown that the nonlinear correction depends strongly on the relative spin orientations in the two spin-polarized reservoirs. Also, the effects of magnetic impurity position and width of nanoribbon on the nonlinear conductance are discussed. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.