Spintronics with Graphene and van der Waals Heterostructures

Book chapter, 2017

The outstanding spin transport properties of graphene make it an ideal candidate for chip scale spin communication devices. Motivated by this prospect, over the past decade, remarkable progress has been made in enhancing the spin transport parameters in graphene. Apart from simple graphene devices, van der Waals heterostructures of graphene have been fabricated by laminating other two-dimensional crystals with graphene. Such heterostructures of graphene with insulating hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) as a substrate and gate dielectric or as spin tunnel barrier have been used to achieve efficient spin injection, large spin coherence time and diffusion length in graphene. In this chapter, we present two important advancements in the field of graphene spintronics: First, the recent achievement of long distance spin communication in large scale chemical vapor deposited graphene, and second, the demonstration of enhanced spin injection and spin filtering effects in ferromagnet/h-BN-graphene van der Waals heterostructures. We discuss how these results feature in the present state-of-the art and open new avenues for future developments.