Graphene in spintronics has so far primarily meant spin current leads of high performance because the intrinsic spin-orbit coupling of its pi-electrons is very weak. If a large spin-orbit coupling could be created by a proximity effect, the material could also form active elements of a spintronic device such as the Das-Datta spin field-effect transistor, however, metal interfaces often compromise the band dispersion of massless Dirac fermions. Our measurements show that Au intercalation at the graphene-Ni interface creates a giant spin-orbit splitting (~100 meV) in the graphene Dirac cone up to the Fermi energy. Photoelectron spectroscopy reveals hybridization with Au-5d states as the source for the giant spin-orbit splitting. An ab initio model of the system shows a Rashba-split dispersion with the analytically predicted gapless band topology around the Dirac point of graphene and indicates that a sharp graphene-Au interface at equilibrium distance will account for only ~10 meV spin-orbit splitting. The ab initio calculations suggest an enhancement due to Au atoms that get closer to the graphene and do not violate the sublattice symmetry.
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