Hanle Spin Precession Research Articles

Gate-tunable black phosphorus spin valve with nanosecond spin lifetimes

Two-dimensional materials offer new opportunities for both fundamental science and technological applications, by exploiting the electron spin. While graphene is very promising for spin communication due to its extraordinary electron mobility, the lack of a band gap restricts its prospects for semiconducting spin devices such as spin diodes and bipolar spin transistors. The recent emergence of 2D semiconductors could help overcome this basic challenge. In this letter we report the first important step towards making 2D semiconductor spin devices. We have fabricated a spin valve based on ultra-thin (5 nm) semiconducting black phosphorus (bP), and established fundamental spin properties of this spin channel material which supports all electrical spin injection, transport, precession and detection up to room temperature (RT). Inserting a few layers of boron nitride between the ferromagnetic electrodes and bP alleviates the notorious conductivity mismatch problem and allows efficient electrical spin injection into an n-type bP. In the non-local spin valve geometry we measure Hanle spin precession and observe spin relaxation times as high as 4 ns, with spin relaxation lengths exceeding 6 um. Our experimental results are in a very good agreement with first-principles calculations and demonstrate that Elliott-Yafet spin relaxation mechanism is dominant. We also demonstrate that spin transport in ultra-thin bP depends strongly on the charge carrier concentration, and can be manipulated by the electric field effect.

Hanle spin precession in a two-dimensional electron system

We investigate the nonlocal Hanle effect in high mobility two-dimensional electron systems using (Ga,Mn)As/GaAs spin Esaki diodes as spin selective contacts. Spin signals in these systems can be strongly affected by dynamic nuclear polarization, which mimics long spin-relaxation times extracted from the measured Hanle curves. Here, we introduce a method which largely suppresses these effects by using an ac injection-detection setup. This allows us to extract from the measurements realistic spin lifetimes on the order of single nanoseconds. As the detection of Hanle signals is also strongly affected by offset signals we discuss the magnetic field dependence of these background voltages observed in lateral nonlocal spin injection devices. We show how the strength of the background magnetoresistance can be minimized by choosing a proper device geometry.

Graphene- WS2 heterostructures for tunable spin injection and spin transport

We report the first measurements of spin injection in to graphene through a 20 nm thick tungsten disulphide (WS$_2$) layer, along with a modified spin relaxation time ({\tau}s) in graphene in the WS$_2$ environment, via spin-valve and Hanle spin-precession measurements, respectively. First, during the spin-injection into graphene through a WS$_2$-graphene interface, we can tune the interface resistance at different current bias and modify the spin injection efficiency, in a correlation with the conductivity-mismatch theory. Temperature assisted tunneling is identified as a dominant mechanism for the charge transport across the interface. Second, we measure the spin transport in graphene, underneath the WS$_2$ crystal and observe a significant reduction in the {\tau}s down to 17 ps in graphene in the WS$_2$ covered region, compared to that in its pristine state. The reduced {\tau}s indicates the WS$_2$-proximity induced additional dephasing of the spins in graphene.

Hanle precession in the presence of energy-dependent coupling between localized states and an epitaxial graphene spin channel

Hanle spin precession measurements are a common method to extract the spin transport properties of graphene. In epitaxial graphene on silicon carbide, these measurements show unexpected behavior, due to presumed localized states in the carbon buffer layer that is present between the channel and the substrate. As a consequence, the Hanle curve narrows in its magnetic field dependence and can show an unconventional shape, which has been experimentally observed and modeled in previous studies. Here, we extend the previously developed model by assuming that the localized states are charge traps, that have a power-law distribution of trapping times. Our simulations show that the energy dependence of these trapping times can be extracted from the temperature evolution of the Hanle curve, which was previously observed in experiments. Our extended model gives better insight into what processes play a role when a spin channel is coupled to localized states and their relation to the experimental observations.

Observation and modelling of ferromagnetic contact-induced spin relaxation in Hanle spin precession measurements

In the nonlocal spin valve (NLSV) geometry, four-terminal electrical Hanle effect measurements have the potential to provide a particularly simple determination of the lifetime $({\ensuremath{\tau}}_{s})$ and diffusion length $({\ensuremath{\lambda}}_{\mathrm{N}})$ of spins injected into nonmagnetic (N) materials. Recent papers, however, have demonstrated that traditional models typically used to fit such data provide an inaccurate measurement of ${\ensuremath{\tau}}_{s}$ in ferromagnet (FM)/N metal devices with low interface resistance, particularly when the separation of the source and detector contacts is small. In the transparent limit, this shortcoming is due to the back diffusion and subsequent relaxation of spins within the FM contacts, which is not properly accounted for in standard models of the Hanle effect. Here we have used the separation dependence of the spin accumulation signal in NLSVs with multiple FM/N combinations, and interfaces in the diffusive limit, to determine ${\ensuremath{\lambda}}_{\mathrm{N}}$ in traditional spin valve measurements. We then compare these results to Hanle measurements as analyzed using models that either include or exclude spin sinking. We demonstrate that differences between the spin valve and Hanle measurements of ${\ensuremath{\lambda}}_{\mathrm{N}}$ can be quantitatively modelled provided that both the FM contact-induced isotropic spin sinking and the full three-dimensional geometry of the devices, which is particularly important at small contact separations, are accounted for. We find, however, that considerable difficulties persist, in particular due to the sensitivity of fitting to the contact interface resistance and the FM contact magnetization rotation, in precisely determining ${\ensuremath{\lambda}}_{\mathrm{N}}$ with the Hanle technique alone, particularly at small contact separations.

Contact induced spin relaxation in graphene spin valves with Al2O3 and MgO tunnel barriers

We investigate spin relaxation in graphene by systematically comparing the roles of spin absorption, other contact-induced effects (e.g., fringe fields), and bulk spin relaxation for graphene spin valves with MgO barriers, Al2O3 barriers, and transparent contacts. We obtain effective spin lifetimes by fitting the Hanle spin precession data with two models that include or exclude the effect of spin absorption. Results indicate that additional contact-induced spin relaxation other than spin absorption dominates the contact effect. For tunneling contacts, we find reasonable agreement between the two models with median discrepancy of ∼20% for MgO and ∼10% for Al2O3.

Electrical spin injection and detection of spin precession in room temperature bulk GaN lateral spin valves

We report the measurement of diffusive electronic spin transport characteristics in an epitaxial wurtzite GaN lateral spin valve at room temperature. Hanle spin precession and non-local spin accumulation measurements have been performed with the spin valves fabricated with FeCo/MgO spin contacts. Electron spin relaxation length and spin-flip lifetime of 176 nm and 37 ps, respectively, are derived from analysis of results obtained from four-terminal Hanle spin precession measurements at 300 K. The role of dislocations and defects in bulk GaN has also been examined in the context of electronic spin relaxation dynamics.

Spin relaxation in graphene with self-assembled cobalt porphyrin molecules

In graphene spintronics, interaction of localized magnetic moments with the electron spins paves a new way to explore the underlying spin relaxation mechanism. A self-assembled layer of organic cobalt-porphyrin (CoPP) molecules on graphene provides a desired platform for such studies via the magnetic moments of porphyrin-bound cobalt atoms. In this work a study of spin transport properties of graphene spin-valve devices functionalized with such CoPP molecules as a function of temperature via non-local spin-valve and Hanle spin precession measurements is reported. For the functionalized (molecular) devices, we observe a slight decrease in the spin relaxation time ({\tau}s), which could be an indication of enhanced spin-flip scattering of the electron spins in graphene in the presence of the molecular magnetic moments. The effect of the molecular layer is masked for low quality samples (low mobility), possibly due to dominance of Elliot-Yafet (EY) type spin relaxation mechanisms.

Observation of anomalous Hanle spin precession line shapes resulting from interaction with localized states

It has been shown recently that in spin precession experiments, the interaction of spins with localized states can change the response to a magnetic field, leading to a modified, effective spin relaxation time and precession frequency. Here, we show that also the shape of the Hanle curve can change, so that it cannot be fitted with the solutions of the conventional Bloch equation. We present experimental data that show such an effect arising at low temperatures in epitaxial graphene on silicon carbide with localized states in the carbon buffer layer. We compare the effect between materials made with different growth methods, epitaxial growth by sublimation and by chemical vapor deposition. The presented analysis gives information about the density of localized states and their coupling to the graphene states, which is inaccessible by charge transport measurements and can be applied to any spin transport channel that is coupled to localized states.

(Invited) Spin Transport in Germanium

I will review the work leading to the first demonstration of spin transport in germanium. This includes the development of Fe/MgO/Ge(001) junctions by molecular beam epitaxy, characterization of Schottky barriers at this junction, and the fabrication of germanium lateral spin valves consisting of a Ge spin transport channel and Fe/MgO electrodes. We employ the nonlocal spin transport geometry to isolate pure spin currents (without net charge currents) that flow from the spin injector to the spin detector. Most importantly, we are able to provide the unambiguous proof of spin transport by observing the Hanle spin precession in the nonlocal geometry. We compare the results with three-terminal Hanle measurements and discuss a new future direction for spintronics research using a two-dimensional form of germanium known as germanane.

(Invited) Spin Transport in Germanium

Spin transport in semiconductors forms the basis of potential new technologies in information processing and storage. I will highlight the work leading to the first demonstration of spin transport and precession in germanium. This includes the development of single-crystalline MgO tunnel barriers and ferromagnetic Fe electrodes and their incorporation into lateral spin valves. Measurements in the non local spin transport geometry including Hanle spin precession provides the unambiguous proof for spin injection and transport in germanium. In addition, I will discuss our development of a two-dimensional form of germanium, known as germanane, consisting of hydrogen-terminated honeycomb sheets, similar to graphene. This new 2D material is a direct gap semiconductor with band gap of ~1.5 eV and has favorable properties for spintronic devices.

Effect of contacts on spin lifetime measurements in graphene

Injection, transmission, and detection of spins in a conducting channel are the basic ingredients of spintronic devices. Long spin lifetimes during transit are an important ingredient in realizing this technology. An attractive platform for this purpose is graphene, which has high mobilities and low spin-orbit coupling. Unfortunately, measured spin lifetimes are orders of magnitude smaller than theoretically expected. A source of spin loss is the resistance mismatch between the ferromagnetic electrodes and graphene. While this has been studied numerically, here we provide a closed form expression for Hanle spin precession which is the standard method of measuring spin lifetimes. This allows for a detailed characterization of the nonlocal spin valve device.

Spin Heat Accumulation Induced by Tunneling from a Ferromagnet

An electric current from a ferromagnet into a nonmagnetic material can induce a spin-dependent electron temperature. Here, it is shown that this spin heat accumulation, when created by tunneling from a ferromagnet, produces a non-negligible voltage signal that is comparable to that due to the coexisting electrical spin accumulation and can give a different Hanle spin precession signature. The effect is governed by the spin polarization of the Peltier coefficient of the tunnel contact, its Seebeck coefficient, and the spin heat resistance of the nonmagnetic material, which is related to the electrical spin resistance by a spin-Wiedemann-Franz law. Moreover, spin heat injection is subject to a heat conductivity mismatch that is overcome if the tunnel interface has a sufficiently large resistance.

Spin rectification induced by dynamical Hanle effect

Dynamic response of spin accumulation to a time-dependent magnetic field has been investigated in a ferromagnetic/nonmagnetic bilayer under ferromagnetic resonance. In this system, magnetization precession driven by a microwave generates direct-current (dc) and alternate-current (ac) spin accumulation in the nonmagnetic layer by the spin pumping. The ac spin accumulation is coupled with the microwave magnetic field through a dynamical Hanle spin precession, giving rise to rectified spin accumulation comparable with the dc spin accumulation directly generated by the spin pumping.

Effect of Cu interfacial layer thickness on spin-injection efficiency in NiFe/Cu/graphene spin valves

The spin injection efficiency in NiFe/Cu/graphene spin-valves has been investigated systematically with emphasis on the Cu thickness effect. An optimum Cu thickness is found to be around 2.5 nm for which spin injection efficiency up to 8.4% has been measured. With a further increase of Cu thickness, the efficiency decreases to 3.6%−3.8% at 3.5 nm and is hardly measureable at 5 nm and beyond. The decrease is discussed in the context of enhanced spin-flip scattering at the NiFe/Cu interface and grain boundaries in the polycrystalline Cu as well as current shunting induced lengthening of travelling distance of electrons inside Cu. On the other hand, a further reduction of Cu thickness below 2.5 nm results in pinholes which also lowers the spin-injection efficiency. In addition to the Cu thickness, another factor which affects the spin signal is the DC bias voltage. The non-local magnetoresistance is highest when measured under zero-bias condition and becomes smaller when a DC bias is applied. The reduction of efficiency correlates well with the decrease in Cu-graphene contact resistance, which is consistent with the non-ohmic nature of Cu-graphene interface. Hanle spin precession curves were measured at different back gate biases from which the spin relaxation length was determined to be 1.6 μm−2.7 μm.

Localized States Influence Spin Transport in Epitaxial Graphene

We developed a spin transport model for a diffusive channel with coupled localized states that result in an effective increase of spin precession frequencies and a reduction of spin relaxation times in the system. We apply this model to Hanle spin precession measurements obtained on monolayer epitaxial graphene on SiC(0001). Combined with newly performed measurements on quasi-free-standing monolayer epitaxial graphene on SiC(0001) our analysis shows that the different values for the diffusion coefficient measured in charge and spin transport measurements on monolayer epitaxial graphene on SiC(0001) and the high values for the spin relaxation time can be explained by the influence of localized states arising from the buffer layer at the interface between the graphene and the SiC surface.

Contact-induced spin relaxation in Hanle spin precession measurements

In the field of spintronics the "conductivity mismatch" problem remains an important issue. Here the difference between the resistance of ferromagnetic electrodes and a (high resistive) transport channel causes injected spins to be backscattered into the leads and to lose their spin information. We study the effect of the resulting contact induced spin relaxation on spin transport, in particular on non-local Hanle precession measurements. As the Hanle line shape is modified by the contact induced effects, the fits to Hanle curves can result in incorrectly determined spin transport properties of the transport channel. We quantify this effect that mimics a decrease of the spin relaxation time of the channel reaching more than 4 orders of magnitude and a minor increase of the diffusion coefficient by less than a factor of 2. Then we compare the results to spin transport measurements on graphene from the literature. We further point out guidelines for a Hanle precession fitting procedure that allows to reliably extract spin transport properties from measurements.

Magnetic Moment Formation in Graphene Detected by Scattering of Pure Spin Currents

Hydrogen adatoms are shown to generate magnetic moments inside single layer graphene. Spin transport measurements on graphene spin valves exhibit a dip in the nonlocal spin signal as a function of the applied magnetic field, which is due to scattering (relaxation) of pure spin currents by exchange coupling to the magnetic moments. Furthermore, Hanle spin precession measurements indicate the presence of an exchange field generated by the magnetic moments. The entire experiment including spin transport is performed in an ultrahigh vacuum chamber, and the characteristic signatures of magnetic moment formation appear only after hydrogen adatoms are introduced. Lattice vacancies also demonstrate similar behavior indicating that the magnetic moment formation originates from p(z)-orbital defects.

Electron spin relaxation in rippled graphene with low mobilities

We investigate spin relaxation in rippled graphene where curvature induces a Zeeman-like spin-orbit coupling with opposite effective magnetic fields along the graphene plane in K and K′ valleys. The joint effect of this Zeeman-like spin-orbit coupling and the intervalley electron-optical phonon scattering opens a spin relaxation channel, which manifests itself in low-mobility samples with the electron mean free path being smaller than the ripple size. Due to this spin relaxation channel, with the increase of temperature, the relaxation time for spins perpendicular to the effective magnetic field first decreases and then increases, with a minimum of several hundred picoseconds around room temperature. However, the spin relaxation along the effective magnetic field is determined by the curvature-induced Rashba-type spin-orbit coupling, leading to a temperature-insensitive spin relaxation time of the order of microseconds. Therefore, the in-plane spin relaxation in low-mobility rippled graphene is anisotropic. Nevertheless, in the presence of a small perpendicular magnetic field, as usually applied in the Hanle spin precession measurement, the anisotropy of spin relaxation is strongly suppressed. The spin relaxation channel revealed in this work contributes to spin relaxation around room temperature in rippled graphene with low mobility.

Electrical Detection of Spin Precession in Freely Suspended Graphene Spin Valves on Cross‐Linked Poly(methyl methacrylate)

Spin injection and detection is achieved in freely suspended graphene using cobalt electrodes and a nonlocal spin-valve geometry. The devices are fabricated with a single electron-beam-resist poly(methyl methacrylate) process that minimizes both the fabrication steps and the number of (aggressive) chemicals used, greatly reducing contamination and increasing the yield of high-quality, mechanically stable devices. As-grown devices can present mobilities exceeding 10(4) cm(2) V(-1) s(-1) at room temperature and, because the contacts deposited on graphene are only exposed to acetone and isopropanol, the method is compatible with almost any contacting material. Spin accumulation and spin precession are studied in these nonlocal spin valves. Fitting of Hanle spin precession data in bilayer and multilayer graphene yields a spin relaxation time of ∼125-250 ps and a spin diffusion length of 1.7-1.9 μm at room temperature.