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Strong and Tunable Spin-Lifetime Anisotropy in Dual-Gated Bilayer Graphene

Jinsong Xu, Tiancong Zhu, Yunqiu Kelly Luo, Yuan-Ming Lu, and Roland K. Kawakami
Phys. Rev. Lett. 121, 127703 – Published 20 September 2018
Physics logo See Synopsis: Anisotropic Spin Currents in Graphene
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Abstract

We report the discovery of a strong and tunable spin-lifetime anisotropy with excellent out-of-plane spin lifetimes up to 7.8 ns at 100 K in dual-gated bilayer graphene. Remarkably, this realizes the manipulation of spins in graphene by electrically controlled spin-orbit fields, which is unexpected due to graphene’s weak intrinsic spin-orbit coupling (12μeV). We utilize both the in-plane magnetic field Hanle precession and oblique Hanle precession measurements to directly compare the lifetimes of out-of-plane vs in-plane spins. We find that near the charge neutrality point, the application of a perpendicular electric field opens a band gap and generates an out-of-plane spin-orbit field that stabilizes out-of-plane spins against spin relaxation, leading to a large spin-lifetime anisotropy (defined as the ratio between out-of-plane and in-plane spin lifetime) up to 12 at 100 K. This intriguing behavior occurs because of the unique spin-valley coupled band structure of bilayer graphene. Our results demonstrate the potential for highly tunable spintronic devices based on dual-gated 2D materials.

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  • Received 6 June 2018

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.121.127703

© 2018 American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Condensed Matter, Materials & Applied Physics

Synopsis

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Anisotropic Spin Currents in Graphene

Published 20 September 2018

Two groups have shown they can create long-lived, polarized spin currents in bilayer graphene.

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Authors & Affiliations

Jinsong Xu, Tiancong Zhu, Yunqiu Kelly Luo, Yuan-Ming Lu, and Roland K. Kawakami

  • Department of Physics, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 43210, USA

See Also

Observation of Spin-Valley-Coupling-Induced Large Spin-Lifetime Anisotropy in Bilayer Graphene

Johannes Christian Leutenantsmeyer, Josep Ingla-Aynés, Jaroslav Fabian, and Bart J. van Wees
Phys. Rev. Lett. 121, 127702 (2018)

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Vol. 121, Iss. 12 — 21 September 2018

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