Spin-resolved bandstructure of graphene on a ferromagnetic support

The graphene-Co interface gives rise to efficient spin injection, spin reorientation transitions in Co, and a Rashba-type DMI interaction. The basis of such spin effects may be sought in the Gr-Co orbital hybridization, which results in a spin-polarized state near the Fermi level, termed as minicone in the literature. All studies to date focused on cases in which the graphene’s crystallographic orientation matches that of the Co support. Here, in order to understand more realistic systems, we have investigated the spin-polarized electronic structure of azimuthally-rotated Gr-Co interfaces. High-resolution angle-resolved photoemission (ARPES) data collected at the BaDElph and NanoESCA beamlines were complemented by the Spectroscopic photoemission and low energy electron microscopy (SPELEEM) measurements carried out at the Nanospectroscopy beamline. The binding energy of the minicone state was found unchanged between

rotated and epitaxially-oriented domains,whereas the Fermi velocity is slightly higher for the rotated domains. Importantly, the minicone band feature was found to be highly spin-polarized for all azimuthal rotations. Our findings provide a solid experimental and theoretical basis for exploiting CVD synthesized graphene/Co(0001) interfaces in spintronics.

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Spin-polarized hybrid states in epitaxially-aligned and rotated graphene on cobalt
Jugovac M., Donkor E.D., Moras P., Cojocariu I., Genuzio F., Zamborlini G., Di Santo G., Petaccia L., Stojić N., Feyer V., Schneider C.M., Locatelli A., Menteş T.O.
Carbon 198, 188-194 (2022);
doi: 10.1016/j.carbon.2022.07.011 (Journal Article)