Enhanced room-temperature magnetoresistance of hybrid graphene nanosheets produced by a laser-assisted process

The major challenges in the commercialization of spintronic devices lie in the high-dimensional materials with low spin-current generation efficiency and expensive fabrication processes. Recent discovery on the magnetoresistance (MR) phenomenon of graphene nanosheets could suggest that graphene-based materials can be excellent materials for spintronic devices. To develop two-dimensional materials with high MR at the low magnetic field and room temperature, we design and develop hybrid graphene nanosheets by using the matrix-assisted pulsed laser evaporation (MAPLE) technique. FeCo nanoparticles (NPs) are deposited onto the reduced graphene oxide (rGO) nanosheets in a stoichiometric manner by the MAPLE process. The density and size of FeCo NPs on rGO can be simply adjusted by varying the deposition time (t). Most importantly, with a limited FeCo ratio (0.4 at.%), MAPLE-prepared FeCo/rGO hybrid nanosheets display an MR phenomenon (MR up to 0.7%) at the low magnetic field (10 kOe) and room temperature. In this paper, we demonstrate that the MAPLE process can be used to produce hybrid graphene nanosheets with MR properties. The results of this work can contribute to the development of spintronic devices, e.g., ultra-thin MR sensors.