Room-temperature valleytronic transistor
Source abstract
Abstract
Valleytronics, based on the valley degree of freedom rather than charge, is a promising candidate for next-generation information devices beyond complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) technology1-4. Although many intriguing valleytronic properties have been explored based on excitonic injection or the non-local response of transverse current schemes at low temperature4-7, demonstrations of valleytronic building blocks similar to transistors in electronics, especially at room temperature, remain elusive. Here, we report a solid-state device that enables a full sequence of generating, propagating, detecting and manipulating valley information at room temperature. Chiral nanocrescent plasmonic antennae8 are used to selectively generate valley-polarized carriers in MoS2 through hot-electron injection under linearly polarized infrared excitation. These long-lived valley-polarized free carriers can be detected in a valley Hall configuration9-11 even without charge current, and can propagate over 18 μm by means of drift. In addition, electrostatic gating allows us to modulate the magnitude of the valley Hall voltage. The electrical valley Hall output could drive the valley manipulation of a cascaded stage, rendering the device able to serve as a transistor free of charge current with pure valleytronic input/output. Our results demonstrate the possibility of encoding and processing information by valley degree of freedom, and provide a universal strategy to study the Berry curvature dipole in quantum materials.
Source: europepmc · Quality: candidate unverified · Source record ↗
Research context
OpenAlex topics: 2D Materials and Applications · Graphene research and applications · Topological Materials and Phenomena
SciVX discovery tags are terminology-based. OpenAlex topics are source-provided classifications.
References (40)
Show source-provided references
1. Xiao, D., Yao, W. & Niu, Q. Valley-contrasting physics in graphene: magnetic moment and topological transport. Phys. Rev. Lett. 99, 236809 (2007).10.1103/PhysRevLett.99.236809 ↗
2. Mak, K. F., He, K. L., Shan, J. & Heinz, T. F. Control of valley polarization in monolayer MoS2 by optical helicity. Nat. Nanotechnol. 7, 494–498 (2012).10.1038/nnano.2012.96 ↗
3. Zhu, Z. W. et al. Field-induced polarization of Dirac valleys in bismuth. Nat. Phys. 8, 89–94 (2012).10.1038/nphys2111 ↗
4. Isberg, J. et al. Generation, transport and detection of valley-polarized electrons in diamond. Nat. Mater. 12, 760–764 (2013).10.1038/nmat3694 ↗
5. Shimazaki, Y.et al. Generation and detection of pure valley current by electrically induced Berry curvature in bilayer graphene. Nat. Phys. 11, 1032–1036 (2015).10.1038/nphys3551 ↗
6. Li, J. et al. A valley valve and electron beam splitter. Science 362, 1149–1152 (2018).10.1126/science.aao5989 ↗
7. Shkolnikov, Y. P., de Poortere, E. P., Tutuc, E. & Shayegan, M. Valley splitting of AlAs two-dimensional electrons in a perpendicular magnetic field. Phys. Rev. Lett. 89, 226805 (2002).10.1103/PhysRevLett.89.226805 ↗
8. Fang, Y. et al. Hot electron generation and cathodoluminescence nanoscopy of chiral split ring resonators. Nano Lett. 16, 5183–5190 (2016).10.1021/acs.nanolett.6b02154 ↗
9. Mak, K. F., McGill, K. L., Park, J. & McEuen, P. L. The valley Hall effect in MoS2 transistors. Science 344, 1489–1492 (2014).10.1126/science.1250140 ↗
10. Ubrig, N. et al. Microscopic origin of the valley Hall effect in transition metal dichalcogenides revealed by wavelength-dependent mapping. Nano Lett. 17, 5719–5725 (2017).10.1021/acs.nanolett.7b02666 ↗
11. Sui, M. et al. Gate-tunable topological valley transport in bilayer graphene. Nat. Phys. 11, 1027–1031 (2015).10.1038/nphys3485 ↗
12. Zeng, H. et al. Valley polarization in MoS2 monolayers by optical pumping. Nat. Nanotechnol. 7, 490–493 (2012).10.1038/nnano.2012.95 ↗
13. Cao, T. et al. Valley-selective circular dichroism of monolayer molybdenum disulphide. Nat. Commun. 3, 887 (2012).10.1038/ncomms1882 ↗
14. Sun, L. et al. Separation of valley excitons in a MoS2 monolayer using a subwavelength asymmetric groove array. Nat. Photonics 13, 180–184 (2019).10.1038/s41566-019-0348-z ↗
15. Yang, L. et al. Long-lived nanosecond spin relaxation and spin coherence of electrons in monolayer MoS2 and WS2. Nat. Phys. 11, 830–834 (2015).10.1038/nphys3419 ↗
16. Lee, J., Mak, K. F. & Shan, J. Electrical control of the valley Hall effect in bilayer MoS2 transistors. Nat. Nanotechnol. 11, 421–426 (2016).10.1038/nnano.2015.337 ↗
17. Lee, J. et al. Valley magnetoelectricity in single-layer MoS2. Nat. Mater. 16, 887–891 (2017).10.1038/nmat4931 ↗
18. Zhang, Y. J. et al. Electrically switchable chiral light-emitting transistor. Science 344, 725–728 (2014).10.1126/science.1251329 ↗
19. Sanchez, O. L. et al. Valley polarization by spin injection in a light-emitting van der Waals heterojunction. Nano Lett. 16, 5792–5797 (2016).10.1021/acs.nanolett.6b02527 ↗
20. Ye, Y. et al. Electrical generation and control of the valley carriers in a monolayer transition metal dichalcogenide. Nat. Nanotechnol. 11, 597–603 (2016).10.1038/nnano.2016.49 ↗
21. Eginligil, M. et al. Dichroic spin–valley photocurrent in monolayer molybdenum disulphide. Nat. Commun. 6, 7636 (2015).10.1038/ncomms8636 ↗
22. Cha, S. et al. Generation, transport and detection of valley-locked spin photocurrent in WSe2–graphene–Bi2Se3 heterostructures. Nat. Nanotechnol. 13, 910–914 (2018).10.1038/s41565-018-0195-y ↗
23. Yuan, H. et al. Generation and electric control of spin–valley-coupled circular photogalvanic current in WSe2. Nat. Nanotechnol. 9, 851–857 (2014).10.1038/nnano.2014.183 ↗
24. Li, Z. et al. Tailoring MoS2 valley-polarized photoluminescence with super chiral near-field. Adv. Mater. 30, 1801908 (2018).10.1002/adma.201801908 ↗
25. Wu, Z. et al. Room-temperature active modulation of valley dynamics in a monolayer semiconductor through chiral Purcell effects. Adv. Mater. 31, 1904132 (2019).10.1002/adma.201904132 ↗
26. Buscema, M. et al. Large and tunable photothermoelectric effect in single-layer MoS2. Nano Lett. 13, 358–363 (2013).10.1021/nl303321g ↗
27. Howell, S. L. et al. Investigation of band-offsets at monolayer–multilayer MoS2 junctions by scanning photocurrent microscopy. Nano Lett. 15, 2278–2284 (2015).10.1021/nl504311p ↗
28. Jin, C. et al. Imaging of pure spin-valley diffusion current in WS2-WSe2 heterostructures. Science 360, 893–896 (2018).10.1126/science.aao3503 ↗
29. McIver, J. W. et al. Control over topological insulator photocurrents with light polarization. Nat. Nanotechnol. 7, 96–100 (2012).10.1038/nnano.2011.214 ↗
30. Lagarde, D. et al. Carrier and polarization dynamics in monolayer MoS2. Phys. Rev. Lett. 112, 047401 (2014).10.1103/PhysRevLett.112.047401 ↗
31. Mai, C. et al. Many-body effects in valleytronics: direct measurement of valley lifetimes in single-layer MoS2. Nano Lett. 14, 202–208 (2014).10.1021/nl403742j ↗
32. Wang, G. et al. Valley dynamics probed through charged and neutral exciton emission in monolayer WSe2. Phys. Rev. B 90, 075413 (2014).10.1103/PhysRevB.90.075413 ↗
33. Singh, A. et al. Long-lived valley polarization of intravalley trions in monolayer WSe2. Phys. Rev. Lett. 117, 257402 (2016).10.1103/PhysRevLett.117.257402 ↗
34. Rivera, P. et al. Valley-polarized exciton dynamics in a 2D semiconductor heterostructure. Science 351, 688–691 (2016).10.1126/science.aac7820 ↗
35. Schaibley, J. R. et al. Valleytronics in 2D materials. Nat. Rev. Mater. 1, 16055 (2016).10.1038/natrevmats.2016.55 ↗
36. Robin, O., Lei, S., Mikael, S. & Mikael, K. Continuous-gradient plasmonic nanostructures fabricated by evaporation on a partially exposed rotating substrate. Adv. Mater. 28, 4658–4664 (2016).10.1002/adma.201600112 ↗
37. Ermolaev, G. A., Yakubovsky, D. I., Stebunov, Y. V., Arsenin, A. V. & Volkov, V. S. Spectral ellipsometry of monolayer transition metal dichalcogenides: analysis of excitonic peaks in dispersion. J. Vac. Sci. Technol. B 38, 014002 (2020).10.1116/1.5122683 ↗
38. Johnson, P. B. & Christy, R. W. Optical constants of the noble metals. Phys. Rev. B 6, 4370–4379 (1972).10.1103/PhysRevB.6.4370 ↗
39. Tang, Y. & Cohen, A. E. Optical chirality and its interaction with matter. Phys. Rev. Lett. 104, 163901 (2010).10.1103/PhysRevLett.104.163901 ↗
40. Schäferling, M., Dregely, D., Hentschel, M. & Giessen, H. Tailoring enhanced optical chirality: design principles for chiral plasmonic nanostructures. Phys. Rev. X 2, 031010 (2012).