The electronic properties of the doped zigzag silicon carbon nanoribbon

•Boron–nitrogen codoping changes the conduction band near the Fermi level of silicon carbon nanoribbon distinctly.•The total magnetic moment of the doped silicon carbon nanoribbon is decreasing from 1.40 μB to 0.94 μB with the increasing distance between nitrogen and boron.•There exhibit both conducting and half-metallic behavior in response to the boron/nitrogen codoping without an applied external field.

We investigate the electronic properties of zigzag silicon carbon nanoribbon with boron–nitrogen codoping at different sites by means of the first-principles calculations based on density functional theory. The results show that the band structures of these codoping configurations have distinctly changed around the Fermi level with the boron atom moving towards the edge of the nanoribbon. Compared with the undoped silicon carbon nanoribbon, the total magnetic moment of the doped silicon carbon nanoribbon is changing from 1.40 μB to 0.94 μB with the increasing distance between nitrogen and boron. It is found that our results exhibit both conducting and half-metallic behavior in response to the boron/nitrogen codoping at different sites without an applied external field, opening a new path in spintronics device application based on silicon carbon nanoribbon.