Spin polarization and g-factor enhancement in graphene nanoribbons in magnetic field

Abstract: We provide a systematic quantitative description of spin polarization in armchair and zigzag graphene nanoribbons in a perpendicular magnetic field. We first address spinless electrons within the Hartree approximation studying the evolution of the magnetoband structure and formation of the compressible strips. We discuss the potential profile and the density distribution near the edges and the difference and similarities between armchair and zigzag edges. Accounting for the Zeeman interaction and describing the spin effects via the Hubbard term we study the spin-resolved subband structure and relate the spin polarization of the system at hand to the formation of the compressible strips for the case of spinless electrons. At high magnetic field the calculated effective g-factor varies around a value of <g*>~2.25 for armchair nanoribbons and <g*>~3 for zigzag nanoribbons. An important finding is that in zigzag nanoribbons the zero-energy mode remains pinned to the Fermi-energy and becomes fully spin-polarized for all magnetic fields, which, in turn, leads to a strong spin polarization of the electron density near the zigzag edge.