Topological-edge-state spin transport in asymmetric three-terminal silicenelike nanodevice

Abstract

Abstract We theoretically investigate the topological-edge-state spin transport in asymmetric three-terminal silicene-like nanodevice. Since silicene-like materials are honeycomb structures with considerable spin-orbit interaction (SOI), they possess both Dirac electron and topology insulator behaviors. In the three-terminal silicene-like nanodevice, the SOI realizes helical edge state and brings fully spin polarization selectively without external field. Firstly, we find that the spin degeneracy breaking gives rise to spin-polarized transport, i.e., up-spin electron and down-spin electron propagating to different leads from the top lead. The distribution of edge-state spin-dependent current in the real space indicates that an up-/down-spin channel to the left/right lead is opened at the interface of the present nanodevice. Secondly, the spin-polarized transport behavior has a competition with the effect of asymmetric transport, which prefers propagating the up- and down-electrons from top lead to the same (right) lead. Interestingly, as the geometric size variation is considered, the results show that the width increase of the horizontal armchair (top vertical zigzag) lead reinforces the spin-polarized (asymmetric) transport. However, when both the armchair and zigzag leads increase simultaneously, the spin-polarized transport becomes the dominant effect. Therefore, this edge-state spin-polarized transport behavior is topologically protected and very robust as the whole geometric size of the nanodevice increases. These properties of the topological-edge-state spin transport enable the asymmetric three-terminal silicene-like nanodevice a spin filter or a spin valve, and might contribute to the silicene-like nanocircuit engineering and spintronics application.