Suppression of contact-induced spin dephasing in graphene/MgO/Co spin-valve devices by successive oxygen treatments

By successive oxygen treatments of graphene nonlocal spin-valve devices we achieve a gradual increase of the contact-resistance-area products (R(c)A) of Co/MgO spin injection and detection electrodes and a transition from linear to nonlinear characteristics in the respective differential dV-dI curves. With this manipulation of the contacts, both spin lifetime and the amplitude of the spin signal can significantly be increased by a factor of seven in the same device. This demonstrates that contact-induced spin dephasing is the bottleneck for spin transport in graphene devices with small R(c)A values. With increasing R(c)A values, we furthermore observe the appearance of a second charge neutrality point (CNP) in gate-dependent resistance measurements. Simultaneously, we observe a decrease of the gate voltage separation between the two CNPs. The strong enhancement of the spin-transport properties as well as the changes in charge transport are explained by a gradual suppression of a Co-graphene interaction by improving the oxide barrier during oxygen treatment.