Direct coupling-induced pseudoparity nonconservation scattering: bipolar spin diode and unipolar spin entanglement pairing

Abstract

The zigzag graphene nanoribbon (ZR) is characterized by the distinct pseudoparity combined with valley-selection rule, which could feature exotic transport phenomena, especially in ZR-based superconducting spintronic devices. However, the ZR with superconductivity induced by proximity of a bulk superconductor (SC) on it still keeps original band properties. Herein, we present a superconducting heterostructure with an SC directly coupling to two ZRs, which is characteristic of pseudoparity-mixing, resulting in pseudoparity nonconservation elastic cotunneling (EC) and crossed Andreev reflection (CAR) processes. It is shown that the mixing leads to the switch effect of the EC and CAR processes manipulated by the SC length, particularly the full spin polarization. In the context of only one magnetized ZR lead, a novel bipolar spin diode behavior on a scale of small SC length and unipolar spin entanglement pairing at some large SC lengths, are both exhibited on a large scale of forward and/or reverse bias voltages. More importantly, the spin-diode can be combined with the quantum spin Hall (QSH) insulator to provide smoking gun evidence for the helical spin texture of the (QSH) insulator, which is still lacking.

Keywords

• spin entanglement pairing
• zigzag graphene nanoribbon
• valley-selection rule
• spin diode
• Andreev reflection