Spin transport in carbon nanotubes and graphene: Experiments and theory

Carbon Nanotubes and graphene are attractive for spintronics as a long spin lifetime can be expected from the small spin-orbit interaction in carbon and the absence of nuclear spins for the main isotope. A second interest comes from their sensitivity to proximity effects that can be used to introduce local magnetic or spin-orbit interactions for the manipulation of spin currents. In this review, written in 2012 and updated in 2015, we have mainly discussed the problems of spin lifetime and spin diffusion length rather than those of magnetism and spin-orbit more recently investigated. For graphene the experimental spin lifetimes and spin diffusion lengths can be relatively long (typically above 1 ns and 10 μm) if the conduction channel is protected from external influences and separated from the electrodes by large contact resistances.