Effects of random atomic disorder on the magnetic stability of graphene nanoribbons with zigzag edges

Abstract

We investigate the effects of randomly distributed atomic defects on the magnetic properties of graphene nanoribbons with zigzag edges using an extended mean-field Hubbard model. For a balanced defect distribution among the sublattices of the honeycomb lattice in the bulk region of the ribbon, the ground-state antiferromagnetism of the edge states remains unaffected. By analyzing the excitation spectrum, we show that while the antiferromagnetic ground state is susceptible to single spin-flip excitations from edge states to magnetic defect states at low defect concentrations, its overall stability is enhanced with respect to the ferromagnetic phase.