skip to main content
OSTI.GOV title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Title: Significant Dzyaloshinskii–Moriya interaction at graphene–ferromagnet interfaces due to the Rashba effect

Journal Article · · Nature Materials
 [1];  [2]; ORCiD logo [3]; ORCiD logo [4];  [5];  [6]; ORCiD logo [7]; ORCiD logo [8];  [4];  [9]; ORCiD logo [5]
  1. Univ. Grenoble Alpes, CEA, CNRS, Grenoble INP, INAC-SPINTEC, Grenoble (France); Université Paris-Saclay, Palaiseau; Chinese Academy of Sciences, Ningbo (China)
  2. Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States); Univ. of California, Davis, CA (United States)
  3. Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States); Centro de Desenvolvimento da Tecnologia Nuclear, CDTN, Belo Horizonte (Brazil); Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte (Brazil)
  4. Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
  5. Univ. Grenoble Alpes, CEA, CNRS, Grenoble INP, INAC-SPINTEC, Grenoble (France)
  6. Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte (Brazil)
  7. Centro de Desenvolvimento da Tecnologia Nuclear, CDTN, Belo Horizonte (Brazil)
  8. Univ. of California, Davis, CA (United States)
  9. Université Paris-Saclay, Palaiseau

We report that the possibility of utilizing the rich spin-dependent properties of graphene has attracted much attention in the pursuit of spintronics advances. The promise of high-speed and low-energy-consumption devices motivates the search for layered structures that stabilize chiral spin textures such as topologically protected skyrmions. Here we demonstrate that chiral spin textures are induced at graphene/ferromagnetic metal interfaces. Graphene is a weak spin-orbit coupling material and is generally not expected to induce a sufficient Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction to affect magnetic chirality. We demonstrate that indeed graphene does induce a type of Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction due to the Rashba effect. First-principles calculations and experiments using spin-polarized electron microscopy show that this graphene-induced Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction can have a similar magnitude to that at interfaces with heavy metals. Lastly, this work paves a path towards two-dimensional-material-based spin-orbitronics.

Research Organization:
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC02-05CH11231
OSTI ID:
1530366
Journal Information:
Nature Materials, Vol. 17, Issue 7; ISSN 1476-1122
Publisher:
Springer Nature - Nature Publishing GroupCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 158 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

References (74)

Graphene spintronics journal October 2014
Spin Transfer Torques in MnSi at Ultralow Current Densities journal December 2010
Orbital chirality and Rashba interaction in magnetic bands journal January 2013
Epitaxial graphene on ruthenium journal April 2008
Air-Protected Epitaxial Graphene/Ferromagnet Hybrids Prepared by Chemical Vapor Deposition and Intercalation journal July 2012
Graphene As a Tunnel Barrier: Graphene-Based Magnetic Tunnel Junctions journal May 2012
Room temperature skyrmion ground state stabilized through interlayer exchange coupling journal June 2015
Out-of-plane chiral domain wall spin-structures in ultrathin in-plane magnets journal May 2017
Tunneling Spin Injection into Single Layer Graphene journal October 2010
Anatomy and Giant Enhancement of the Perpendicular Magnetic Anisotropy of Cobalt–Graphene Heterostructures journal December 2015
Skyrmions on the track journal March 2013
Current-induced skyrmion dynamics in constricted geometries journal September 2013
Nucleation, stability and current-induced motion of isolated magnetic skyrmions in nanostructures journal October 2013
Perpendicular magnetic anisotropy at transition metal/oxide interfaces and applications journal June 2017
Spin-dependent Klein tunneling in graphene: Role of Rashba spin-orbit coupling journal February 2012
Fast current-induced domain-wall motion controlled by the Rashba effect journal May 2011
Tailoring the chirality of magnetic domain walls by interface engineering journal October 2013
Unlocking Bloch-type chirality in ultrathin magnets through uniaxial strain journal March 2015
Chirality from Interfacial Spin-Orbit Coupling Effects in Magnetic Bilayers journal November 2013
Ultrathin epitaxial cobalt films on graphene for spintronic investigations and applications journal October 2010
Intercalation of metal islands and films at the interface of epitaxially grown graphene and Ru(0001) surfaces journal October 2011
Giant Current-Perpendicular-to-Plane Magnetoresistance in Multilayer Graphene as Grown on Nickel journal April 2014
Structure and morphology of ultrathinCo/Ru(0001) films journal March 2007
Ab initiomolecular dynamics for liquid metals journal January 1993
Topological properties and dynamics of magnetic skyrmions journal December 2013
The electronic properties of graphene journal January 2009
Large-Area Synthesis of High-Quality and Uniform Graphene Films on Copper Foils journal May 2009
Blowing magnetic skyrmion bubbles journal June 2015
Real-Space Observation of a Right-Rotating Inhomogeneous Cycloidal Spin Spiral by Spin-Polarized Scanning Tunneling Microscopy in a Triple Axes Vector Magnet journal October 2009
Real-space observation of a two-dimensional skyrmion crystal journal June 2010
Role of Anisotropic Exchange Interactions in Determining the Properties of Spin-Glasses journal June 1980
Highly efficient spin transport in epitaxial graphene on SiC journal June 2012
Twisted exchange interaction between localized spins embedded in a one- or two-dimensional electron gas with Rashba spin-orbit coupling journal March 2004
Novel Chiral Magnetic Domain Wall Structure in Fe / Ni / Cu ( 001 ) Films journal April 2013
Domain wall depinning governed by the spin Hall effect journal February 2013
Current-driven dynamics of chiral ferromagnetic domain walls journal June 2013
Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction mediated by spin-polarized band with Rashba spin-orbit coupling journal September 2015
Room-temperature chiral magnetic skyrmions in ultrathin magnetic nanostructures journal January 2016
Additive interfacial chiral interaction in multilayers for stabilization of small individual skyrmions at room temperature journal January 2016
Anatomy of Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya Interaction at Co / Pt Interfaces journal December 2015
Chiral spin torque at magnetic domain walls journal June 2013
Dynamics of Dzyaloshinskii domain walls in ultrathin magnetic films journal December 2012
Quantum Spin Hall Effect in Graphene journal November 2005
Efficient iterative schemes for ab initio total-energy calculations using a plane-wave basis set journal October 1996
Spin-dependent surface band structure of hcp Co ( 10 1 ¯ 0 ) journal July 1999
Skyrmion flow near room temperature in an ultralow current density journal January 2012
The Rashba-effect at metallic surfaces journal September 2006
Writing and Deleting Single Magnetic Skyrmions journal August 2013
Magnetic Domain-Wall Logic journal September 2005
The rise of graphene journal March 2007
Anisotropic Superexchange Interaction and Weak Ferromagnetism journal October 1960
Roughness-induced domain structure in perpendicular Co/Ni multilayers journal November 2017
Graphene spintronics: the European Flagship perspective journal July 2015
INTERCALATION OF COBALT UNDERNEATH A MONOLAYER OF GRAPHENE ON Ru(0001) journal July 2012
Effects of substitution on the exchange stiffness and magnetization of Co films journal December 2014
Predicting the spin-lattice order of frustrated systems from first principles journal December 2011
Ternary superlattice boosting interface-stabilized magnetic chirality journal February 2015
Perpendicular magnetic anisotropy of cobalt films intercalated under graphene journal October 2012
The rise of graphene book August 2009
An Information Theory-Inspired Strategy for Design of Re-programmable Encrypted Graphene-based Coding Metasurfaces at Terahertz Frequencies journal April 2018
Graphene spintronics conference August 2010
Spin-dependent Klein tunneling in graphene: Role of Rashba spin-orbit coupling text January 2012
The electronic properties of graphene text January 2007
Tunneling Spin Injection into Single Layer Graphene text January 2010
Spin Transfer Torques in MnSi at Ultra-low Current Densities text January 2010
Predicting the Spin-Lattice Order of Frustrated Systems from First-Principles text January 2011
Dynamics of Dzyaloshinskii domain walls in ultrathin magnetic films text January 2012
Current-driven dynamics of chiral ferromagnetic domain walls text January 2013
Current-induced skyrmion dynamics in constricted geometries text January 2013
Perpendicular magnetic anisotropy of cobalt films intercalated under graphene text January 2014
Giant Current-Perpendicular-to-Plane Magnetoresistance in Multilayer Graphene as Grown on Nickel text January 2014
Anatomy of Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya Interaction at Co/Pt Interfaces text January 2015
Roughness-induced domain structure in perpendicular Co/Ni multilayers text January 2016
Twisted exchange interaction between localized spins embedded in a one- or two-dimensional electron gas with Rashba spin-orbit coupling text January 2003

Cited By (21)

Graphene/Half‐Metallic Heusler Alloy: A Novel Heterostructure toward High‐Performance Graphene Spintronic Devices journal December 2019
Rashba-like spin splitting along three momentum directions in trigonal layered PtBi2 journal October 2019
Interface-driven chiral magnetism and current-driven domain walls in insulating magnetic garnets journal April 2019
Reversal of domain wall chirality with ferromagnet thickness in W/(Co)FeB/MgO systems journal January 2019
Two-dimensional van der Waals spinterfaces and magnetic-interfaces journal March 2020
Structural, chemical, and magnetic properties of cobalt intercalated graphene on silicon carbide journal November 2018
Enhanced magnetism and time-stable remanence at the interface of hematite and carbon nanotubes journal July 2019
Confined step-flow growth of Cu intercalated between graphene and a Ru(0 0 0 1) surface journal April 2019
Graphene-based spinmechatronic valve journal October 2019
Magnetic proximity in a van der Waals heterostructure of magnetic insulator and graphene journal December 2019
Measuring the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction of the epitaxial Co/Ir(111) interface journal September 2019
Reversible control of Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction at the graphene/Co interface via hydrogen absorption journal January 2020
Direct observation of unusual interfacial Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction in graphene/NiFe/Ta heterostructures journal January 2019
Cobalt Intercalation of Graphene on Silicon Carbide journal July 2019
Skyrmion Crystals and Phase Transitions in Magneto-Ferroelectric Superlattices: Dzyaloshinskii–Moriya Interaction in a Frustrated J1 − J2 Model journal December 2019
Magnetic proximity in a van der Waals heterostructure of magnetic insulator and graphene text January 2019
Confined step-flow growth of Cu intercalated between graphene and a Ru(0001) surface text January 2019
Correlation between the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction and the orbital angular momentum at an oxide / ferromagnet interface text January 2019
Chiral spin-wave velocities induced by all-garnet interfacial Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction in ultrathin yttrium iron garnet films text January 2019
Skyrmion Crystal and Phase Transition in Magneto-Ferroelectric Superlattices: Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya Interaction in a Frustrated $J_1-J_2$ Model text January 2019
Rashba-like spin splitting along three momentum directions in trigonal layered PtBi2 text January 2019