Impurity-Induced Spin-Orbit Coupling in Graphene

We study the effect of impurities in inducing spin-orbit coupling in graphene. We show that the sp³ distortion induced by an impurity can lead to a large increase in the spin-orbit coupling with a value comparable to the one found in diamond and other zinc-blende semiconductors. The spin-flip scattering produced by the impurity leads to spin scattering lengths of the order found in recent experiments. Our results indicate that the spin-orbit coupling can be controlled via the impurity coverage.