Electric field-induced spin-valley locking in twisted bilayer buckled honeycomb materials

Fuente: arXiv
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Auteurs principaux: Zandvliet, Harold J. W., Bampoulis, Pantelis, Smith, Cristiane Morais, Eek, Lumen
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2025
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author Zandvliet, Harold J. W.
Bampoulis, Pantelis
Smith, Cristiane Morais
Eek, Lumen
author_facet Zandvliet, Harold J. W.
Bampoulis, Pantelis
Smith, Cristiane Morais
Eek, Lumen
contents A twisted honeycomb bilayer exhibits a moiré superstructure that is composed of a hexagonal arrangement of AB and BA stacked domains separated by domain boundaries. In the case of twisted bilayer graphene, the application of an electric field normal to the bilayer leads to the opening of inverted band gaps in the AB and BA stacked domains. The inverted band gaps result in the formation of a two-dimensional triangular network of counterpropagating valley protected helical domain boundary states, also referred to as the quantum valley Hall effect. Owing to spin-orbit coupling and buckling, the quantum valley Hall effect in twisted bilayer silicene and germanene is more complex than in twisted bilayer graphene. We found that there is a range of electric fields for which the spin degree of freedom is locked to the valley degree of freedom of the electrons in the quantum valley Hall states, resulting in a stronger topological protection. For electric fields smaller than the aforementioned range the twisted bilayer does not exhibit the quantum valley Hall effect, whereas for larger electric fields the spin-valley locking is lifted and the emergent quantum valley Hall states are only valley-protected.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2510_14404
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Electric field-induced spin-valley locking in twisted bilayer buckled honeycomb materials
Zandvliet, Harold J. W.
Bampoulis, Pantelis
Smith, Cristiane Morais
Eek, Lumen
Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics
A twisted honeycomb bilayer exhibits a moiré superstructure that is composed of a hexagonal arrangement of AB and BA stacked domains separated by domain boundaries. In the case of twisted bilayer graphene, the application of an electric field normal to the bilayer leads to the opening of inverted band gaps in the AB and BA stacked domains. The inverted band gaps result in the formation of a two-dimensional triangular network of counterpropagating valley protected helical domain boundary states, also referred to as the quantum valley Hall effect. Owing to spin-orbit coupling and buckling, the quantum valley Hall effect in twisted bilayer silicene and germanene is more complex than in twisted bilayer graphene. We found that there is a range of electric fields for which the spin degree of freedom is locked to the valley degree of freedom of the electrons in the quantum valley Hall states, resulting in a stronger topological protection. For electric fields smaller than the aforementioned range the twisted bilayer does not exhibit the quantum valley Hall effect, whereas for larger electric fields the spin-valley locking is lifted and the emergent quantum valley Hall states are only valley-protected.
title Electric field-induced spin-valley locking in twisted bilayer buckled honeycomb materials
topic Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.14404