Plasmons in spin polarized graphene: a new way to measure spin polarization

Abstract

We study the collective charge excitations (plasmons) in spin polarized graphene, and derive explicit expressions for their dispersion in the undamped regime. From this, we are able to calculate the critical wave vector beyond which the plasmon enters the electron-hole continuum, its quality factor decreasing sharply. We find that the value of the critical wave vector is strongly spin polarization-dependent, in a way that has no analog in ordinary two-dimensional electron gases. The origin of this effect is in the coupling between the plasmon and the inter-band electron-hole pairs of the minority spin carriers. We show that the effect is robust with respect to the inclusion of disorder and we suggest that it can be exploited to experimentally determine the spin polarization of graphene.