Remarkable negative differential resistance and perfect spin-filtering effects of the indium triphosphide (InP3) monolayer tuned by electric and optical ways

Abstract

Fully spin-polarized current and negative differential resistance (NDR) are two important electronic transport properties for spintronic nanodevices based on two-dimensional materials. Here, we describe both the electric and optical tuning of the spin-polarized electronic transport properties of the indium triphosphide (InP₃) monolayer, which is doped with Ge atoms, by using quantum transport calculations. The spin degeneration of the InP₃ monolayer is lifted due to the doping of Ge atoms. By applying a small bias voltage, a fully spin-polarized current can be obtained along both the armchair and zigzag directions. Moreover, a remarkable NDR is observed for the current along the zigzag direction, which shows a huge peak-to-valley ratio of 3.1 × 10³, while in the armchair direction, a lower peak-to-valley ratio of 5.5 is obtained. Alternatively, a fully spin-polarized photocurrent can also be generated under the illumination of linearly-polarized light by tuning either the photon energy or the polarization angle.