Fabrication of damage-free and/or contamination-free sub-um electrodes using PMMA masks

Quality of the electrical contacts and interfaces in various metal/semiconductor/insulator heterostructures is one of the pivotal aspects in both applied and fundamental research areas. For instance, non-optimal contact resistance can limit the overall efficiency of a certain developed technology and thus considerably narrow the range or fully block its practical application. On the other hand in fundamental research it is often the case that the manifestation of targeted phenomenon crucially depends on the level of contamination in the fabricated experimental samples. Here we offer a set of recipes that are aimed at contamination-free and damage-free fabrication of the devices, mostly developed for the two dimensional materials, but nevertheless applicable for a wider range of the systems, where the quality of the interfaces and/or non-invasiveness of the fabrication recipes are important. Our recipes are based on the preparation of the flexible PMMA membranes, with the help of which we can prepare residue-free or damage-free electrical connections to the studied material

Large Proximity-Induced Spin Lifetime Anisotropy in Transition Metal Dichalcogenide/Graphene Heterostructures

Van-der-Waals heterostructures have become a paradigm for designing new materials and devices, in which specific functionalities can be tailored by combining the properties of the individual 2D layers. A single layer of transition metal dichalcogenide (TMD) is an excellent complement to graphene (Gr), since the high quality of charge and spin transport in Gr is enriched with the large spin-orbit coupling of the TMD via proximity effect. The controllable spin-valley coupling makes these heterostructures particularly attractive for spintronic and opto-valleytronic applications. In this work, we study spin precession in a monolayer MoSe2/Gr heterostructure and observe an unconventional, dramatic modulation of the spin signal, showing one order of magnitude longer lifetime of out-of-plane spins (40 ps) compared with that of in-plane spins (3.5 ps). This demonstration of a large spin lifetime anisotropy in TMD/Gr heterostructures, is a direct evidence of induced spin-valley coupling in Gr and provides an accessible route for manipulation of spin dynamics in Gr, interfaced with TMDs.Comment: Main manuscript(6 pages, 3 figures), supplementary info(19 pages, 10 figures

Antiferromagnetic Ordering and Uncoupled Spins in CaFe₂O₄ Thin Films Probed by Spin Hall Magnetoresistance

CaFe2O4 is a uniaxial antiferromagnet displaying two coexisting magnetic orderings, A and B, characterized by ↑↑↓↓ and ↑↓↑↓ spin modulation, respectively, and the emergence of a net magnetization in a limited temperature range, which is not yet understood. The spin Hall magnetoresistance (SMR) is probed at the interface between Pt and CaFe2O4 and the crystallographic domain structure of thin film samples is exploited to perform single- and multi-domain scale measurements. The SMR response, upon rotating the magnetic field along three orthogonal planes, shows little effect of the strong magnetocrystalline and shape anisotropies. Together with the response to a varying magnetic field strength, the modulations in the SMR signal allow to extract two contributions: one corresponds to the long-range antiferromagnetic ordering, supporting a single ground state scenario; while the second contribution originates from uncompensated, non-interacting spins. These are expected to exist at the antiphase boundaries between antiferromagnetic domains. Here, it is shown that these are also uncoupled from the antiferromagnetic ordering. Nonetheless, the long range correlations that emerge in the proximity of the critical antiferromagnetic transition can give rise to ordering of the uncompensated spins and be responsible for the net magnetization observed in this antiferromagnet

Electrical and thermal generation of spin currents by magnetic bilayer graphene

Ultracompact spintronic devices greatly benefit from the implementation of two-dimensional materials that provide large spin polarization of charge current together with long-distance transfer of spin information. Here spin-transport measurements in bilayer graphene evidence a strong spin–charge coupling due to a large induced exchange interaction by the proximity of an interlayer antiferromagnet (CrSBr). This results in the direct detection of the spin polarization of conductivity (up to 14%) and a spin-dependent Seebeck effect in the magnetic graphene. The efficient electrical and thermal spin–current generation is the most technologically relevant aspect of magnetism in graphene, controlled here by the antiferromagnetic dynamics of CrSBr. The high sensitivity of spin transport in graphene to the magnetization of the outermost layer of the adjacent antiferromagnet, furthermore, enables the read-out of a single magnetic sublattice. The combination of gate-tunable spin-dependent conductivity and Seebeck coefficient with long-distance spin transport in a single two-dimensional material promises ultrathin magnetic memory and sensory devices based on magnetic graphene

Proximity induced room temperature ferromagnetism in graphene probed with spin currents

We present a direct measurement of the exchange interaction in room temperature ferromagnetic graphene. We study the spin transport in exfoliated graphene on an yttrium-iron-garnet substrate where the observed spin precession clearly indicates the presence and strength of an exchange field that is an unambiguous evidence of induced ferromagnetism. We describe the results with a modified Bloch diffusion equation and extract an average exchange field of the order of 0.2 T. Further, we demonstrate that a proximity induced 2D ferromagnet can efficiently modulate a spin current by controlling the direction of the exchange field. These findings can create a building block for magnetic-gate tuneable spin transport in one-atom-thick spintronic devices

Towards fully two-dimensional spintronic devices

Within the field of spintronics major efforts are directed towards developing applications for spin-based transport devices made fully out of two-dimensional (2D) materials. In this work we present an experimental realization of a spin-valve device where the generation of the spin signal is exclusively attributed to the spin-dependent conductivity of the magnetic graphene resulting from the proximity of an interlayer antiferromagnet, CrSBr. We clearly demonstrate that the usage of the conventional 3D magnetic contacts, that are commonly air-sensitive and incompatible with practical technologies, can be fully avoided when graphene/CrSBr heterostructures are employed. Moreover, apart from providing exceptionally long spin relaxation length, the usage of graphene for both generation and transport of the spin allows to automatically avoid the conductivity mismatch between the source and the channel circuits that has to be considered when using conventional low-resistive contacts. Our results address a necessary step in the engineering of spintronic circuitry out of layered materials and precede further developments in the area of complex spin-logic devices. Moreover, we introduce a fabrication procedure where we designed and implemented a recipe for the preparation of electrodes via a damage-free technique that offers an immediate advantage in the fields of air-sensitive and delicate organic materials