Zigzag nanoribbon of gated bilayer hexagonal crystals with spontaneous edge magnetism

Abstract

Zigzag nanoribbons of monolayer graphene-like two-dimensional materials host spontaneous edge magnetism at the zigzag terminations, whose configuration controls the band gap. In this article, the edge magnetism of zigzag nanoribbons of bilayer hexagonal crystals are studied. The specific models of bilayer graphene and bilayer silicene are both studied. As the gated voltage increases, the total energy level, magnetic structure and band structures of the ground state and the first quasi-stable excited state are tuned. For certain region of the gated voltage, the band gaps of spin up and down are opened and closed, respectively, so that the systems are in the spin-polarized metallic phase. The spin-polarized conducting edge band of the bilayer nanoribbons could be applied for gate tunable spintronic devices.