Giant Edelstein effect in Topological-Insulator--Graphene heterostructures

2017

The control of a ferromagnet's magnetization via only electric currents requires the efficient generation of current-driven spin-torques. In magnetic structures based on topological insulators (TIs) current-induced spin-orbit torques can be generated. Here we show that the addition of graphene, or bilayer graphene, to a TI-based magnetic structure greatly enhances the current-induced spin density accumulation and significantly reduces the amount of power dissipated. We find that this enhancement can be as high as a factor of 100, giving rise to a giant Edelstein effect. Such a large enhancement is due to the high mobility of graphene (bilayer graphene) and to the fact that the graphene (bil…