Intrinsic Controllable Magnetism of Graphene Grown on Fe

Novel functional materials that use both the spin and charge of an electron offer many exciting opportunities to create new information processing and storage devices with ultralow power consumption. The recent discovery of magnetism in atomically thin-layered materials could boost research in the field of light element materials such as van der Waals magnetic nanostructures. Here, we report intrinsic magnetization in large-area graphene grown on Fe(100) foil structures. The optimal growth mechanisms provide high-quality graphene samples with controllable magnetic properties, such as thickness-dependent magnetization. Using first-principles calculations, we investigated several possible scenarios for controlling the magnetic properties. Moreover, the independent magnetic structures induced in graphene were identified through field-applied magnetic force microscopy (FA-MFM) followed by vibrating sample magnetometry (VSM). Our results open a new avenue for controlling the magnetic properties of graphene structures by mediating surface growth on regular magnets for applications in large-scale spintronics.