The magnetic structure and magnetic transport properties of hydrogen-passivated sawtooth zigzag-edge graphene nanoribbons (STGNRs) are investigated theoretically. It is found that all-sized ground-state STGNRs are ferromagnetic and always feature magnetic semiconductor properties, whose spin splitting energy gap Eg changes periodically with the width of STGNRs. More importantly, for the STGNR based device, the dual spin-filtering effect with the perfect (100%) spin polarization and high-performance dual spin diode effect with a rectification ratio about 1010 can be predicted. Particularly, a highly effective spin-valve device is likely to be realized, which displays a giant magnetoresistace (MR) approaching 1010%, which is three orders magnitude higher than the value predicted based on the zigzag graphene nanoribbons and six orders magnitude higher than previously reported experimental values for the MgO tunnel junction. Our findings suggest that STGNRs might hold a significant promise for developing spintronic devices.

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The properties of electronic transport in an electronic device composed of a spatially symmetric phenyldithiolate molecule sandwiched between two gold electrodes with asymmetric contact are investigated by the first-principles study. It is found that the I-V and G-V characteristics of a device show significant asymmetry and the magnitudes of current and conductance depend remarkably on the variation of molecule-metal distance at one of the two contacts. Namely, an asymmetric contact would lead to the weak rectifying effects on the current-voltage characteristics of a molecular device. We also calculate self-consistently other microscopic quantities such as the local density of states, the total density of states, and the distribution of charges in the asymmetric molecular models under the applied bias. The results show that the highest-occupied molecular orbital (HOMO) is responsible for the resonant tunneling and the shifting of the HOMO due to the charging of the device under the bias voltage is the intrinsic origin of asymmetric I(G)-V characteristics.

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