Topological valleytronics in bilayer graphene

Topological valleytronics in bilayer graphene
Jun Zhu, Penn State
Jun Zhu
Date and time: Thu, Apr 04, 2019 - 2:15pm
Refreshments at 2:00pm
Location: HAS 409
Category: Condensed Matter Seminar
Abstract:

The advent of two-dimensional materials with hexagonal crystal symmetry offers a new electronic degree of freedom, namely valley, the manipulation and detection of which could potentially be exploited to form new many-body ground states as well as new paradigms of electronic applications. In this talk, I will describe our work in creating valley-momentum locked quantum wires, namely quantum valley Hall kink states, along artificial domain walls created by gating in Bernal stacked bilayer graphene.  The (quantum valley Hall) kink states can carry current ballistically with a mean free path of several um’s. I will also demonstrate the operations of a topological valley valve and a tunable electron beam splitter, which exploit unique characteristics of the kink states. Because it uses topology, the operation of the valley valve does not require valley-polarized current. The high quality and versatile controls of the system open the door to many exciting possibilities in valleytronics and in pursuing fundamental physics of helical 1D systems.     

 

J. Li, K. Wang, K. J. McFaul, Z. Zern, Y. F. Ren, K. Watanabe, T. Taniguchi, Z. H. Qiao, J. Zhu, “Gate-controlled topological conducting channels in bilayer graphene”, Nature Nanotechnology, 11, 1060 (2016)

Jing Li, Rui-Xing Zhang, Zhenxi Yin, Jianxiao Zhang, Kenji Watanabe, Takashi Taniguchi, Chaoxing Liu, Jun Zhu, “A valley valve and electron beam splitter”, Science 362, 1149 (2018)