Van der Waals heterostructures for spintronics and opto-spintronics

The large variety of 2D materials and their co-integration in van der Waals heterostructures enable innovative device engineering. In addition, their atomically thin nature promotes the design of artificial materials by proximity effects that originate from short-range interactions. Such a designer approach is particularly compelling for spintronics, which typically harnesses functionalities from thin layers of magnetic and non-magnetic materials and the interfaces between them. Here we provide an overview of recent progress in 2D spintronics and opto-spintronics using van der Waals heterostructures. After an introduction to the forefront of spin transport research, we highlight the unique spin-related phenomena arising from spin–orbit and magnetic proximity effects. We further describe the ability to create multifunctional hybrid heterostructures based on van der Waals materials, combining spin, valley and excitonic degrees of freedom. We end with an outlook on perspectives and challenges for the design and production of ultracompact all-2D spin devices and their potential applications in conventional and quantum technologies.J.F.S. and S.O.V. acknowledge support of the European Union’s Horizon 2020 FET-PROACTIVE project TOCHA under grant agreement 824140, the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) through award number OSR-2018-CRG7-3717 and MINECO under contract numbers PID2019-111773RB-I00/AEI/10.13039/501100011033, RYC2019-028368-I/AEI/10.13039/50110001103 and SEV-2017-0706 Severo Ochoa. J.F., S.R. and S.O.V. acknowledge support from the European Union Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Program under contract number 881603 (Graphene Flagship) and J.F. acknowledges support from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German research Foundation) under grant numbers SFB 1277 (project-id:314695032) and SPP 2244. R.K.K. acknowledges support from the US DOE-BES (grant number DE-SC0016379), AFOSR MURI 2D MAGIC (grant number FA9550-19-1-0390) and NSF MRSEC (grant number DMR-2011876)