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Long-distance spin transport through a graphene quantum Hall antiferromagnet

Nature Physics volume 14, pages 907–911 (2018)Cite this article

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A Publisher Correction to this article was published on 09 July 2018

This article has been updated

Abstract

Because of their ultrafast intrinsic dynamics and robustness against stray fields, antiferromagnetic insulators1,2,3 are promising candidates for spintronic components. Therefore, long-distance, low-dissipation spin transport and electrical manipulation of antiferromagnetic order are key research goals in antiferromagnetic spintronics. Here, we report experimental evidence of robust spin transport through an antiferromagnetic insulator, in our case the gate-controlled state that appears in charge-neutral graphene in a magnetic field4,5,6. Utilizing quantum Hall edge states as spin-dependent injectors and detectors, we observe large, non-local electrical signals across charge-neutral channels that are up to 5 μm long. The dependence of the signal on magnetic field, temperature and filling factor is consistent with spin superfluidity1,2,4,7,8,9,10 as the spin-transport mechanism. This work demonstrates the utility of graphene in the quantum Hall regime as a powerful model system for fundamental studies in antiferromagnetic spintronics.

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Fig. 1: Device geometry, operating principle and characterization.
Fig. 2: Non-local transport data at T=260 mK.
Fig. 3: Bias and temperature dependence of non-local signal from Device 1.

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Change history

  • 09 July 2018

    In the version of this Letter originally published, the number in the middle yellow box of Fig. 2d was incorrectly given as +2; it should have been 0. This has now been corrected.

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Acknowledgements

We thank H. Chen for helpful discussions. The work is supported by SHINES, which is an Energy Frontier Research Center funded by the Department of Energy (DOE) Basic Energy Sciences (BES) under Award #SC0012670. S.C. is supported by DOE BES under award ER 46940-DE-SC0010597 to study the quantum Hall effect in graphene. A.H.M. acknowledges partial support by the Welch Foundation under grant TBF1473. Part of this work was performed at the NHMFL, which is supported by NSF/DMR-0654118, the State of Florida, and the DOE. Growth of hBN crystals was supported by the Elemental Strategy Initiative conducted by the MEXT, Japan and a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research on Innovative Areas ‘Science of Atomic Layers’ from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS).

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Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Petr Stepanov, Shi Che.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Riverside, CA, USA

    Petr Stepanov, Shi Che, Dmitry Shcherbakov, Jiawei Yang, Kevin Thilahar, Greyson Voigt, Marc W. Bockrath, Yafis Barlas & Chun Ning Lau

  2. Department of Physics, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA

    Petr Stepanov, Shi Che, Dmitry Shcherbakov, Jiawei Yang, Ruoyu Chen, Marc W. Bockrath & Chun Ning Lau

  3. National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, Tallahassee, FL, USA

    Dmitry Smirnov

  4. National Institute for Materials Science, Tsukuba, Japan

    Kenji Watanabe & Takashi Taniguchi

  5. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of California, Riverside, CA, USA

    Roger K. Lake & Yafis Barlas

  6. Department of Physics, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA

    Allan H. MacDonald

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Contributions

Y.B., A.H.M. and C.N.L. conceived the experiment. P.S., S.C. and D.Sh fabricated samples. K.T. and G.V. assisted with sample fabrication. P.S., J.Y., S.C., R.C. and D.Sm performed measurements. K.W. and T.T. provided materials. Y.B., P.S., A.H.M., M.B., R.L. and C.N.L. analysed and interpreted the data. P.S., Y.B., A.H.M., R.L. and C.N.L. wrote the manuscript. All authors discussed and commented on the manuscript.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Roger K. Lake, Yafis Barlas, Allan H. MacDonald or Chun Ning Lau.

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Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary Figures 1–5

Spin transport through graphene antiferromagnetic insulator

Movie demonstrating spin transport

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Stepanov, P., Che, S., Shcherbakov, D. et al. Long-distance spin transport through a graphene quantum Hall antiferromagnet. Nature Phys 14, 907–911 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-018-0161-5

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