Enhanced spin accumulation at room temperature in graphene spin valves with amorphous carbon interfacial layers

We demonstrate a large enhancement of the spin accumulation in monolayer graphene following electron-beam induced deposition of an amorphous carbon layer at the ferromagnet-graphene interface. The enhancement is 10(4)-fold when graphene is deposited onto poly(methyl metacrylate) (PMMA) and exposed with sufficient electron-beam dose to cross-link the PMMA, and 10(3)-fold when graphene is deposited directly onto SiO2 and exposed with identical dose. We attribute the difference to a more efficient carbon deposition in the former case due to an increase in the presence of compounds containing carbon, which are released by the PMMA. The amorphous carbon interface can sustain very large current densities without degrading, which leads to very large spin accumulations exceeding 500 mu eV at room temperature. (C) 2013 AIP Publishing LLC.