Abstract
The Dirac electrons in silicene experience stronger spin-orbit interaction (SOI) than in graphene due to silicene's band buckled two-dimensional (2D) structure. In this work we theoretically probe the main effects of the SOI in silicene, provided this interaction can be controlled by an external electrical field. Attention is paid to how silicene's SOI effects can turn into graphene’s once external parameters can be regulated. By comparing the electronic transmission through silicene and graphene structures we are able to fit the external electrical field to obtain similar results for both materials. We study the conductance through silicene barriers and also show how to straightforwardly probe spin polarization and spin-resolved transmission using as few parameters as possible. We first calculate the electronic transmission through single and double barriers as a function of the electron’s angle of incidence \(\theta \), the electron energy E, and the strength of the external electrical field \(E_{z}.\) We then found that the polarization P versus \(\theta \) in double-barrier structures exhibits quasi-periodic resonances. We finally study asymmetric structures that allow the presence of more transmission channels in the conductance.
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Acknowledgements
This work was supported by Universidade Federal do ABC and CNPq (Brazil), No. 131134/2012-2014.
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Meneses-Gustin, D., Tavares, M.R.S. Probing Spintronic Features in Conduction through Silicene and Graphene Barriers. J. Electron. Mater. 47, 6396–6402 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11664-018-6511-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11664-018-6511-3