Giant Magnetoresistance and Rectification Behavior in Fluorinated Zigzag Boron Nitride Nanoribbon for Spintronic Nanodevices

In the present work, the spin-polarized structural and electronic properties of fluorine (F) passivated zigzag boron nitride nanoribbons (ZBNNRs) at the selective boron (B) and nitrogen (N) edge atoms are investigated. This study is based on the density functional theory (DFT) along with non-equilibrium Green function (NEGF) formalism. Our study predicts that half-metallic property can be obtained in ZBNNRs via F passivation at the selective edges. The F-passivated ZBNNRs are found to be structurally stable in both non-magnetic as well as magnetic ground states irrespective of their width. Hence, the transport properties of F-passivated ZBNNRs are also studied as fluorinated structures are reported to be more stable. The current-voltage characteristics of F-passivated ZBNNRs based devices exhibit the perfect spin-filter characteristics with magnificently high spin-filtering efficiency (SFE) even under a low bias. It is worth mentioning here that giant magnetoresistance (GMR), and rectification ratio (RR) of the order of 10(8) and 10(5) respectively, have been observed for F-BN-F device. This is because dangling bonds break the edge states' symmetry and induces some localized states, which suppresses the electron transmission and reduces the current. The observed perfect spin-filtering characteristics, GMR, and rectifying characteristics suggest that F-passivated ZBNNRs have immense potentials to be deployed for nanoscale spintronic devices.

Automated summary

This study investigates the spin-polarized structural and electronic properties of fluorine (F) passivated zigzag boron nitride nanoribbons (ZBNNRs) at the selective boron (B) and nitrogen (N) edges. It predicts that F-passivation can lead to half-metallic property in ZBNNRs and that F-passivated ZBNNRs exhibit structural stability and good transport properties. The devices based on F-passivated ZBNNRs show perfect spin-filtering characteristics with high spin-filtering efficiency, indicating their potential for nanoscale spintronic applications.