Tuning the valley and chiral quantum state of Dirac electrons in van der Waals heterostructures

Abstract

A chiral elementary particle has its spin pointing in either the same or the opposite direction as its momentum. In graphene, electrons have an analogous chirality, but observing it in electrical transport experiments is tricky. To do this, Wallbank et al. studied how electrons tunnel between two slightly misaligned graphene sheets separated by a layer of insulating hexagonal boron nitride. The chiral nature of the electrons imposed restrictions on the tunneling, which made it possible to discern the signatures of chirality in the data.

Document Details

Document Type
Pub Defense Publication
Publication Date
Aug 05, 2016
Source ID
10.1126/science.aaf4621

Entities

People

  • A. Mishchenko
  • A. Misra
  • Andre Geim
  • B. A. Piot
  • D. Ghazaryan
  • J. R. Wallbank
  • J. S. Tu
  • Konstantin Novoselov
  • L. Eaves
  • M. Potemski
  • M. T. Greenaway
  • S. Pezzini
  • S. Wiedmann
  • Sergey V. Morozov
  • T. L. M. Lane
  • U. Zeitler
  • V. I. Fal'ko
  • Yanrong Cao

Organizations

  • Air Force Office of Scientific Research
  • Army Research Office
  • Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council
  • European Research Council
  • Institute of Microelectronics Technology and High Purity Materials
  • LNCMI
  • Leverhulme Trust
  • Nanjing University of Science and Technology
  • National University of Science and Technology
  • Radboud University Nijmegen
  • Royal Society
  • Russian Center for Science Information
  • Seventh Framework Programme
  • University of Manchester
  • University of Nottingham

Tags

Fields of Study

  • Physics

Readers

  • Materials Science and Engineering.
  • Quantum Dot Semiconductor Device Photonics and Graphene Optoelectronic Materials and THz Physics.
  • Systems Analysis and Design

Technology Areas

  • Microelectronics
  • Microelectronics - Graphene
  • Quantum Computing