Proposal for all-electrical spin manipulation and detection for a single molecule on boron-substituted graphene

Abstract

All-electrical writing and reading of spin states attract considerable attention for their promising applications in energy-efficient spintronics devices. Here we show, based on rigorous first-principles calculations, that the spin properties can be manipulated and detected in molecular spinterfaces, where an iron tetraphenyl porphyrin (FeTPP) molecule is deposited on boron-substituted graphene (B-G). Notably, a reversible spin switching between the S = 1 and S = 3/2 states is achieved by a gate electrode. We can trace the origin to a strong hybridization between the Fe-d z 2 and B-pz orbitals. Combining density functional theory with nonequilibrium Green's function formalism, we propose an experimentally feasible 3-terminal setup to probe the spin state. Furthermore, we show how the in-plane quantum transport for the B-G, which is non-spin polarized, can be modified by FeTPP, yielding a significant transport spin polarization near the Fermi energy (> 10% for typical coverage). Our work paves the way to realize all-electrical spintronics devices using molecular spinterfaces.