Spin dependent transport in hybrid one dimensional BNC systems

Density functional theory is employed to study the electronic and transport properties of a new class of hybrid BNC nanostructures based on graphene/boron nitride nanoribbons encapsulated by graphene/boron nitride nanotubes. Our results show spin polarized transport for three different cases, depending on the nature of the encapsulated nanoribbon (graphene or hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN)), of its encapsulating nanotube, and on the orientation of the ribbon. Also, band gap opening was observed for the armchair carbon nanotube (CNT) based nanostructures, on which the interaction with the encapsulated nanoribbon breaks the CNT's sub-lattice symmetry. The electronic transport properties are studied from the standpoint of the Landauer-Buttiker formalism, and the results indicate that the current is spin polarized, which theoretically make these structures suitable candidates for applications as spintronic devices, such as spin valves or spin based detectors.