Spin injection in graphene using ferromagnetic van der Waals contacts of indium and cobalt

Abstract

Graphene-based spintronic devices require efficient spin injection, and dielectric tunnel barriers are typically used to facilitate spin injection. However, the direct growth of ultrathin dielectrics on two-dimensional surfaces is challenging and unreliable. Here we report spin injection in graphene lateral spin valves using ferromagnetic van der Waals contacts of indium and cobalt (In–Co), and without the deposition of dielectric tunnel barriers. With this approach, we obtain magnetoresistance values of 1.5% ± 0.5% (spin signal around 50 Ω), which is comparable to state-of-the-art graphene lateral spin valves with oxide tunnel barriers, with a working device yield of more than 70%. By contrast, lateral spin valves with non-van der Waals contacts containing only cobalt are inefficient and exhibit, at best, a magnetoresistance of around 0.2% (spin signal around 3 Ω). The contact resistance of our ferromagnetic indium–cobalt van der Waals contacts is 2–5 kΩ, which makes them compatible with complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor devices.