title: Spin-transport selectivity upon Co adsorption on antiferromagnetic graphene nanoribbons.
abstract: We investigate from first principles the electronic and transport properties of zigzag graphene nanoribbons in the presence of Co adatoms. Comparing different adsorption sites across the width, we find that the Co-C coupling is rather sensitive to the local environment. While a net spin polarization appears in all cases, the spin filtering effect is significantly enhanced when the Co adatom is at the edge, where the adsorption energy is maximized and a partial suppression of edge-associated transport channels occurs. We also probe the magnetic interaction in the nonbonding regime, for Co-graphene nanoribbon (GNR) distances ranging from adsorption to π-π typical configurations. Our results indicate that Co-GNR coupling is still appreciable in an intermediate range, whereas it becomes vanishingly small in the limit of π-π distances.
authors.affiliation: Centro S3, CNR-Istituto Nanoscienze, Via Campi 213A, I-41125 Modena, Italy.
authors.forename: Caterina
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Cocchi
authors.forename: Deborah
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Prezzi
authors.forename: Arrigo
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Calzolari
authors.forename: Elisa
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Molinari