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

Abstract

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. © 2013 AIP Publishing LLC.