Tunable Spin-Orbit Interaction in Trilayer Graphene Exemplified in Electric-Double-Layer Transistors

Taking advantage of ultrahigh electric field generated in electric-double-layer transistors (EDLTs), we investigated spin-orbit interaction (SOT) and its modulation in epitaxial trilayer graphene. It was found in magnetotransport that the dephasing length L-phi and spin relaxation length L-so of carriers can be effectively modulated with gate bias. As a direct result, SOI-induced weak antilocalization (WAL), together with a crossover from WAL to weak localization (WL), was observed at near-zero magnetic field. Interestingly, among existing localization models, only the Iordanskii-Lyanda-Geller-Pikus theory can successfully reproduce the obtained magnetoconductance well, serving as evidence for gate tuning of the weak but distinct SOI in graphene. Realization of SOI and its large tunability in the trilayer graphene EDLTs provides us with a possibility to electrically manipulate spin precession in graphene systems without ferromagnetics.