Magnetism of Topological Boundary States Induced by Boron Substitution in Graphene Nanoribbons

  1. Friedrich, Niklas 1
  2. Brandimarte, Pedro 2
  3. Li, Jingcheng 1
  4. Saito, Shohei 3
  5. Yamaguchi, Shigehiro 4
  6. Pozo, Iago 5
  7. Peña, Diego 5
  8. Frederiksen, Thomas 6
  9. Garcia-Lekue, Aran 6
  10. Sánchez-Portal, Daniel 7
  11. Pascual, Jose Ignacio 8
  1. 1 Centro de Investigación Cooperativa en Nanociencias
    info

    Centro de Investigación Cooperativa en Nanociencias

    San Sebastián, España

  2. 2 Donostia International Physics Center
    info

    Donostia International Physics Center

    San Sebastián, España

    ROR https://ror.org/02e24yw40

  3. 3 Kyoto University
    info

    Kyoto University

    Kioto, Japón

    ROR https://ror.org/02kpeqv85

  4. 4 Nagoya University
    info

    Nagoya University

    Nagoya, Japón

    ROR https://ror.org/04chrp450

  5. 5 CiQUS & Universidade de Santiago de Compostela
  6. 6 DIPC & Ikerbasque
  7. 7 DIPC & CFM CSIC-UPV/EHU
  8. 8 CIC nanoGUNE & Ikerbasque

Editor: Zenodo

Año de publicación: 2020

Tipo: Dataset

Resumen

OPEN DATA related to the research publication: Niklas Friedrich, Pedro Brandimarte, Jingcheng Li, Shohei Saito, Shigehiro Yamaguchi, Iago Pozo, Diego Peña, Thomas Frederiksen, Aran Garcia-Lekue, Daniel Sánchez-Portal, and José Ignacio Pascual, <em>Magnetism of Topological Boundary States Induced by Boron Substitution in Graphene Nanoribbons</em>, Phys. Rev. Lett. <strong>125</strong>, 146801 (2020) [arXiv:2004.10280] Abstract: Graphene nanoribbons (GNRs), low-dimensional platforms for carbon-based electronics, show the promising perspective to also incorporate spin polarization in their conjugated electron system. However, magnetism in GNRs is generally associated with localized states around zigzag edges, difficult to fabricate and with high reactivity. Here we demonstrate that magnetism can also be induced away from physical GNR zigzag edges through atomically precise engineering topological defects in its interior. A pair of substitutional boron atoms inserted in the carbon backbone breaks the conjugation of their topological bands and builds two spin-polarized boundary states around them. The spin state was detected in electrical transport measurements through boron-substituted GNRs suspended between the tip and the sample of a scanning tunneling microscope. First-principle simulations find that boron pairs induce a spin 1, which is modified by tuning the spacing between pairs. Our results demonstrate a route to embed spin chains in GNRs, turning them into basic elements of spintronic devices.