Metal-Controlled Magnetoresistance at Room Temperature in Single-Molecule Devices

The appropriate choice of the transition metal complex and metal surface electronic structure opens the possibility to control the spin of the charge carriers through the resulting hybrid molecule/metal spinterface in a single molecule electrical contact at room temperature. The single molecule cond...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Aragonès, Albert C., Aravena Ponce, Daniel Alejandro, Valverde-Muñoz, Francisco J., Real, José Antonio, Sanz Carrasco, Fausto, Díez Pérez, Ismael, Ruiz Sabín, Eliseo
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión aceptada para publicación
Fecha de publicación:2017
País:España
Institución:Universidad de Barcelona
Repositorio:Dipòsit Digital de la UB
OAI Identifier:oai:diposit.ub.edu:2445/154758
Acceso en línea:https://hdl.handle.net/2445/154758
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Magnetoresistència
Teoria del funcional de densitat
Espintrònica
Magnetoresistance
Density functionals
Spintronics
Descripción
Sumario:The appropriate choice of the transition metal complex and metal surface electronic structure opens the possibility to control the spin of the charge carriers through the resulting hybrid molecule/metal spinterface in a single molecule electrical contact at room temperature. The single molecule conductance of a Au/molecule/Ni junction can be switched by flipping the magnetization direction of the ferromagnetic electrode. The requirements of the molecule include not just the presence of unpaired electrons: the electronic configuration of the metal center has to provide occupied or empty orbitals that strongly interact with the junction metal electrodes and that are close in energy to their Fermi levels for one of the electronic spins only. The key ingredient for the metal surface is to provide an efficient spin texture induced by the spin orbit coupling in the topological surface states that results in an efficient spin-dependent interaction with the orbitals of the molecule. The strong magnetoresistance effect found in this kind of single-molecule wire opens a new approach for the design of room-temperature nanoscale devices based on spin-polarized currents controlled at molecular level.