Spin-inversion in nanoscale graphene sheets with a Rashba spin-orbit barrier

• Main Authors: Somaieh Ahmadi, Mahdi Esmaeilzadeh, Esmaeil Namvar, Genhua Pan
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: AIP Publishing LLC 2012-03-01
• Series: AIP Advances
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.3684600

Spin-inversion properties of an electron in nanoscale graphene sheets with a Rashba spin-orbit barrier is studied using transfer matrix method. It is found that for proper values of Rashba spin-orbit strength, perfect spin-inversion can occur in a wide range of electron incident angle near the normal incident. In this case, the graphene sheet with Rashba spin-orbit barrier can be considered as an electron spin-inverter. The efficiency of spin-inverter can increase up to a very high value by increasing the length of Rashba spin-orbit barrier. The effect of intrinsic spin-orbit interaction on electron spin inversion is then studied. It is shown that the efficiency of spin-inverter decreases slightly in the presence of intrinsic spin-orbit interaction. The present study can be used to design graphene-based spintronic devices.