Ultrafast switching in spin field-effect transistors based on borophene nanoribbons

Abstract

Borophene, owing to the high mobility and long spin coherent length of its carriers, presents significant opportunities in ultrafast spintronics. In this research, we investigate the spin-dependent conductance of a Datta–Das field-effect transistor (FET) based on an armchair β₁₂-borophene nanoribbon (BNR) using the tight-binding (TB) Hamiltonian in combination with the non-equilibrium Green's function (NEGF) method. The spin FET electrodes are magnetized by ferromagnetic (FM) insulators arranged in both parallel and anti-parallel configurations. This device acts as a controllable spin filter in the presence of Rashba spin–orbit coupling (SOC) for both configurations and its spin current is well modulated by a gate voltage and the strength of the Rashba SOC. For anti-parallel configurations, an energy gap emerges within a certain range of incoming electron energy which can disappear for electrons with flipped spin under the Rashba SOC. Furthermore, our findings indicate that the electron–electron (e–e) interaction helps the spin precession of electrons injected into the spin FET channel, thereby strengthening the Rashba SOC effect. Notably, a gate voltage can adjust the current–voltage (I–V) characteristics of this device. Finally, our calculations demonstrate that under the same conditions, the current magnitude and I_on/I_off ratio of borophene spin FETs are several times higher than those of graphene and silicene spin FETs.