Enhanced Tunnel Spin Injection into Graphene using Chemical Vapor Deposited Hexagonal Boron Nitride
Journal article, 2014

The van der Waals heterostructures of two-dimensional (2D) atomic crystals constitute a new paradigm in nanoscience. Hybrid devices of graphene with insulating 2D hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) have emerged as promising nanoelectronic architectures through demonstrations of ultrahigh electron mobilities and charge-based tunnel transistors. Here, we expand the functional horizon of such 2D materials demonstrating the quantum tunneling of spin polarized electrons through atomic planes of CVD grown h-BN. We report excellent tunneling behavior of h-BN layers together with tunnel spin injection and transport in graphene using ferromagnet/h-BN contacts. Employing h-BN tunnel contacts, we observe enhancements in both spin signal amplitude and lifetime by an order of magnitude. We demonstrate spin transport and precession over micrometer-scale distances with spin lifetime up to 0.46 nanosecond. Our results and complementary magnetoresistance calculations illustrate that CVD h-BN tunnel barrier provides a reliable, reproducible and alternative approach to address the conductivity mismatch problem for spin injection into graphene.

Author

Venkata Kamalakar Mutta

Chalmers, Microtechnology and Nanoscience (MC2), Quantum Device Physics

André Dankert

Chalmers, Microtechnology and Nanoscience (MC2), Quantum Device Physics

Johan Bergsten

Chalmers, Microtechnology and Nanoscience (MC2), Microwave Electronics

Tommy Ive

Chalmers, Microtechnology and Nanoscience (MC2), Photonics

Saroj Prasad Dash

Chalmers, Microtechnology and Nanoscience (MC2), Quantum Device Physics

Scientific Reports

2045-2322 (ISSN) 20452322 (eISSN)

Vol. 4 Art. no. 6146- 6146

Areas of Advance

Nanoscience and Nanotechnology

Materials Science

Subject Categories

Materials Engineering

Physical Sciences

Nano Technology

Infrastructure

Nanofabrication Laboratory

DOI

10.1038/srep06146

More information

Created

10/7/2017