Crossed Andreev reflection in superconducting graphene spin-valves: Spin-switch effect

Abstract

We consider the non-local quantum transport properties of a graphene superconducting spin-valve. It is shown that one may create a spin-switch effect between perfect elastic co-tunneling (CT) and perfect crossed Andreev-reflection (CAR) for all bias voltages in the low-energy regime by reversing the magnetization direction in one of the ferromagnetic layers. This opportunity arises due the possibility of tuning the local Fermi-level in graphene to values equivalent to a weak, magnetic exchange splitting, thus reducing the Fermi surface for minority spins to a single point and rendering graphene to be half-metallic. Such an effect is not attainable in a conventional metallic spin-valve setup, where the contributions from CT and CAR tend to cancel each other and noise-measurements are necessary to distinguish these processes.