UC Riverside

Recent focus on two dimensional materials and spin-coupled phenomena holds future potential for fast, efficient, flexible, and transparent devices.

The fundamental operation of a spintronic device depends on the injection, transmission, and detection of spins in a conducting channel. Long spin lifetimes during transit are critical for realizing this technology. An attractive platform for this purpose is graphene, which has high mobilities and low spin-orbit coupling. Unfortunately, measured spin lifetimes are orders of magnitude smaller than theoretically expected. A source of spin loss is the resistance mismatch between the ferromagnetic electrodes and graphene. While this has been studied numerically, here we provide a closed form expression for Hanle spin precession which is the standard method of measuring spin lifetimes. This allows for a detailed characterization of the nonlocal spin valve device.

Strong spin-orbit interaction has the potential to engender unconventional superconducting states. A cousin to graphene, two dimensional transition metal dichalcogenides entwine interaction, spin-orbit coupling, and topology. The noninteracting electronic states have multiple valleys in the energy dispersion and are topologically nontrivial. We report on the possible superconducting states of hole-doped systems, and analyze to what extent the correlated phase inherits the topological aspects of the parent crystal. We find that local attractive interactions or proximal coupling to $s$-wave superconductors lead to a pairing which is an equal mixture of a spin singlet and the $m = 0$ spin triplet. Its topology allows quasiparticle excitations of net nonzero Berry curvature via pair-breaking by circularly polarized light. The valley contrasting optical response, where oppositely circularly polarized light couples to different valleys, is present even in the superconducting state, though with smaller magnitude.