Issue 4, 2012

Reversible, opto-mechanically induced spin-switching in a nanoribbon-spiropyran hybrid material

Abstract

It has recently been shown that electronic transport in zigzag graphene nanoribbons becomes spin-polarized upon application of an electric field across the nanoribbon width. However, the electric fields required to experimentally induce this magnetic state are typically large and difficult to apply in practice. Here, using both first-principles density functional theory (DFT) and time-dependent DFT, we show that a new spiropyran-based, mechanochromic polymernoncovalently deposited on a nanoribbon can collectively function as a dual opto-mechanical switch for modulating its own spin-polarization. These calculations demonstrate that upon mechanical stress or photoabsorption, the spiropyran chromophore isomerizes from a closed-configuration ground-state to a zwitterionic excited-state, resulting in a large change in dipole moment that alters the electrostatic environment of the nanoribbon. We show that the electronic spin-distribution in the nanoribbon-spiropyran hybrid material can be reversibly modulated via noninvasive optical and mechanical stimuli without the need for large external electric fields. Our results suggest that the reversible spintronic properties inherent to the nanoribbon-spiropyran material allow the possibility of using this hybrid structure as a resettable, molecular-logic quantum sensor where opto-mechanical stimuli are used as inputs and the spin-polarized current induced in the nanoribbon substrate is the measured output.

Graphical abstract: Reversible, opto-mechanically induced spin-switching in a nanoribbon-spiropyran hybrid material

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
19 Oct 2011
Accepted
13 Dec 2011
First published
09 Jan 2012
This article is Open Access

Nanoscale, 2012,4, 1321-1327

Reversible, opto-mechanically induced spin-switching in a nanoribbon-spiropyran hybrid material

B. M. Wong, S. H. Ye and G. O'Bryan, Nanoscale, 2012, 4, 1321 DOI: 10.1039/C2NR11543C

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