Ab initio calculations are performed to investigate the spin-polarized transport properties of the bare and hydrogenated zigzag silicene nanoribbons (ZSiNRs). The results show that the ZSiNRs with symmetric (asymmetric) edges prefer the ferromagnetic (antiferromagnetic) as their ground states with the semiconductor properties, while the accordingly antiferromagnetic (ferromagnetic) states exhibit the metallic behaviors. These facts result in a giant magnetoresistance behavior between the ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic states in the low bias-voltage regime. Moreover, in the ferromagnetic ZSiNRs with asymmetric edges, a perfect spin-filtering effect with 100% positive electric current polarization can be achieved by altering the bias voltage. In addition, we also find that the negative differential resistances prefer the metastable states. The findings here indicate that the asymmetric and symmetric ZSiNRs are promising materials for spintronic applications.

We examine the relation between the phase-coherent processes and spin-dependent thermoelectric effects in an Aharonov-Bohm (AB) interferometer with a Rashba quantum dot (QD) in each of its arm by using the Green's function formalism and equation of motion (EOM) technique. Due to the interplay between quantum destructive interference and Rashba spin-orbit interaction (RSOI) in each QD, an asymmetrical transmission node splits into two spin-dependent asymmetrical transmission nodes in the transmission spectrum and, as a consequence, results in the enhancement of the spin-dependent thermoelectric effects near the spin-dependent asymmetrical transmission nodes. We also examine the evolution of spin-dependent thermoelectric effects from a symmetrical parallel geometry to a configuration in series. It is found that the spin-dependent thermoelectric effects can be enhanced by controlling the dot-electrode coupling strength. The simple analytical expressions are also derived to support our numerical results.PACS numbers: 73.63.Kv; 71.70.Ej; 72.20.Pa

We report a first-principles study of the magnetic properties and spin caloritronics of zigzag-type blue phosphorene nanoribbons (zBPNRs). It is found that the bare zBPNR (0H-zBPNR) or monohydrogenated zBPNR (1H-zBPNR) exhibit spin-semiconducting properties arising from the edge electronic states. We further confirm that the py orbitals of the edge P atoms have the main contributions to these states. The spin-semiconducting property has a natural advantage for fabricating perfect thermospin devices with a stronger spin Seebeck effect than charge Seebeck effect at the Fermi level. When a temperature difference is applied, the electric current with the different spin index displays a bipolar behavior, and the spin-filtering efficiency can reach 1200%. By changing the widths of 0H-zBPNR and 1H-zBPNR, the ratio of the spin Seebeck coefficient to the charge Seebeck coefficient at the Fermi level is about 10 at room temperature.

We present ab initio studies of spin-polarized transport properties and thermospin effects in cyclopentadienyl-iron molecular junctions. It is found that the spin-up transmission coefficient at the Fermi level shows an odd-even oscillating behaviour, while the spin-down transmission coefficient has an exponential decay with the molecule length. The spin polarization at the Fermi level rapidly tends toward a saturation value close to 100% with the molecule length. This is ascribed to the existence of different orbital states for different spin components at the Fermi level. In addition, we find that the spin-up Seebeck coefficient oscillates between positive and negative values, while the spin-down Seebeck coefficient always has a positive value and monotonically increases with the molecule length. Therefore in some cases, the spin Seebeck coefficient is even larger than the corresponding charge Seebeck effect. Finally, we also provide a possibility of utilizing cyclopentadienyl-iron molecular junctions to achieve the pure spin current without an accompanying charge current at about room temperature.

The CuI/SrTiO3 photodetector presents excellent self-powered characteristics and shows a narrowband photoresponse at zero bias. This device shows a transparency of 70% over the visible light region and blocks 99.9% UV light.

Structural characterization is essential to material engineering, but few tools can detect structural properties in time domain. High harmonic generation (HHG) emerges as a new frontier that touches the heart of condensed matter physics from the symmetry to quantum geometrical nature of electrons, but its capability in structural characterization has not been materialized. Here, we establish a crucial connection between the symmetry of a material and helicity of light. We employ monolayer MoS 2 as an example. We show that the linearly polarized laser pulse used in the experiments is not ideal for structural characterization because it only generates an in-plane anisotropy. It is the circularly polarized laser field that is capable of producing four distinctive HHG signals from the four phases of MoS 2 . This finally links the laser helicity to the crystal structure. The results are generic and are not affected by the Berry curvature, the interband or intraband contribution. Our study unleashes the power of HHG as a structural characterization tool for technologically important materials.

Our recent work has demonstrated that spin-dependent photogalvanic effect (PGE) is an ideal way to induce pure spin current in certain centrosymmetric systems (Phys. Rev. B 102, 081402 (2020)), and...

Herein, in situ chemical anchoring of nickel cobalt selenide (Ni3Se4/CoSe2) on two-dimensional (2D) black phosphorene is creatively proposed via a facile approach. The introduction of 2D black phosphorene brings abundant...