Ferromagnetism in hydrogenated epitaxial graphene on 6H-SiC

Graphene remains a material of interest in both fundamental and applied physics due to its unique combination of properties such as its mechanical strength, surface sensitivity, relativistic bandstructure and large spin relaxation length. Functionalizing graphene leads to a whole new range of properties varying from photoluminescence in graphene oxide to ferromagnetism in hydrogenated graphene. Here we will show a detailed investigation of the (ferro-)magnetic properties of hydrogenated epitaxial graphene on SiC (HeG). The magnetization of the of the HeG shows a clear hysteresis loop, which remains visible up to room temperature with a saturation magnetization of 0.5 μ_B/hexagon. The saturation magnetization depends on the hydrogen coverage and shows a strong anisotropy to the sample orientation with respect to the magnetic field.