Ab initio spin-flip conductance of hydrogenated graphene nanoribbons: Spin-orbit interaction and scattering with local impurity spins

Abstract: We calculate the spin-dependent zero-bias conductance $G_{\sigma\sigma'}$ in armchair graphene nanoribbons with hydrogen adsorbates employing a DFT-based ab initio transport formalism including spin-orbit interaction. We find that the spin-flip conductance $G_{\sigma\bar{\sigma}}$ can reach the same order of magnitude as the spin-conserving one, $G_{\sigma\sigma}$, due to exchange-mediated spin scattering. In contrast, the genuine spin-orbit interaction appears to play a secondary role, only.