Koller, S.S.KollerMayrhofer, L.L.MayrhoferGrifoni, M.M.Grifoni2022-03-042022-03-042010https://publica.fraunhofer.de/handle/publica/22167410.1088/1367-2630/12/3/0330382-s2.0-77951474106We investigate spin effects in transport across fully interacting, finite size graphene armchair nanoribbons (ACNs) contacted to collinearly spin-polarized leads. In such systems, the presence of short ranged Coulomb interaction between bulk states and states localized at the ribbon ends leads to novel spin-dependent phenomena. Specifically, the total spin of the low energy many-body states is conserved during tunneling but that of the bulk and end states is not. As a consequence, in the single-electron regime, dominated by Coulomb blockade phenomena, we find pronounced negative differential conductance features for ACNs contacted to parallel polarized leads. These features are however absent for an anti-parallel contact configuration, which in turn leads within a certain gate and bias voltage region to a negative tunneling magneto-resistance. Moreover, we analyze the changes in the transport characteristics under the influence of an external magnetic field.enPACS 72.25.-bspin polarized transportPACS 75.47.PqPACS 73.63.Rtnanoscale contactsPACS 73.23.Hkcoulomb blockadesingle-electron tunnelingPACS 61.46.-wstructure of nanoscale materials620530journal article