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Twist-angle-tunable spin texture in WSe2/graphene van der Waals heterostructures

Nature Materials (2024)Cite this article

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Abstract

Twist engineering has emerged as a powerful approach for modulating electronic properties in van der Waals heterostructures. While theoretical works have predicted the modulation of spin texture in graphene-based heterostructures by twist angle, experimental studies are lacking. Here, by performing spin precession experiments, we demonstrate tunability of the spin texture and associated spin–charge interconversion with twist angle in WSe2/graphene heterostructures. For specific twist angles, we detect a spin component radial with the electron’s momentum, in addition to the standard orthogonal component. Our results show that the helicity of the spin texture can be reversed by twist angle, highlighting the critical role of the twist angle in the spin–orbit properties of WSe2/graphene heterostructures and paving the way for the development of spin-twistronic devices.

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Fig. 1: Device overview and moiré pattern determination by SHG.
Fig. 2: In-plane non-local spin precession measurements of the REE and UREE at different twist angles.
Fig. 3: Out-of-plane non-local spin precession and gate dependence of SCI.
Fig. 4: Change of helicity in the spin texture with different twist angle.
Fig. 5: Rashba angle tuned by twist angle.

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Data availability

Source data in the paper are available via figshare at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.24616287. Any further data and codes used in this study are available from corresponding authors upon reasonable request.

Code availability

Source data in the paper are available via figshare at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.24616287. Any further data and codes used in this study are available from corresponding authors upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge funding from the ‘Valleytronics’ Intel Science Technology Center; from the Spanish MICIU/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 (‘Maria de Maeztu’ Units of Excellence Programme grant no. CEX2020-001038-M); from MICIU/AEI and ERDF/EU (project nos. PID2021-122511OB-I00 and PID2021-128004NB-C21); from Diputación de Gipuzkoa (project no. 2021-CIEN-000037-01); from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement no. 955671. Z.C. acknowledges support from the ‘Juan de la Cierva’ Programme by the Spanish MICIU/AEI and European Union NextGenerationEU/PRTR (grant no. FJC2021-047257-I). H.Y. acknowledges support from NSFC 92164206 and 52261145694. B.M.-G. and M.G. acknowledge support from the ‘Ramón y Cajal’ Programme by the Spanish MICIU/AEI and European Union NextGenerationEU/PRTR (grant nos. RYC2021-034836-I and RYC2021-031705-I, respectively). CzechNanoLab project LM2023051 funded by MEYS CR is gratefully acknowledged for the financial support of the measurements at LNSM Research Infrastructure.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. CIC nanoGUNE BRTA, Donostia-San Sebastian, Spain

    Haozhe Yang, Beatriz Martín-García, Eoin Dolan, Zhendong Chi, Luis E. Hueso & Fèlix Casanova

  2. Fert Beijing Institute, MIIT Key Laboratory of Spintronics, School of Integrated Circuit Science and Engineering, Beihang University, Beijing, China

    Haozhe Yang

  3. IKERBASQUE, Basque Foundation for Science, Bilbao, Spain

    Beatriz Martín-García, Marco Gobbi, Luis E. Hueso & Fèlix Casanova

  4. Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic

    Jozef Kimák, Eva Schmoranzerová & Petr Němec

  5. Centro de Física de Materiales and Materials Physics Center, Donostia-San Sebastian, Spain

    Marco Gobbi

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  1. Haozhe Yang
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Contributions

H.Y. and F.C. conceived the study. H.Y. fabricated the samples, with help from E.D. and Z.C. H.Y. performed the electrical measurements and the data were analysed by H.Y., M.G., L.E.H. and F.C. B.M.-G. and H.Y. performed the Raman spectroscopy measurements. E.S., J.K. and P.N. performed the optical SHG experiments. All authors contributed to the discussion of the results and their interpretation. H.Y. and F.C. wrote the manuscript with input from all authors.

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Correspondence to Haozhe Yang or Fèlix Casanova.

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Nature Materials thanks Ahmet Avsar and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Yang, H., Martín-García, B., Kimák, J. et al. Twist-angle-tunable spin texture in WSe2/graphene van der Waals heterostructures. Nat. Mater. (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-024-01985-y

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