Among many remarkable qualities of graphene, its electronic properties attract particular interest due to a massless chiral character of charge carriers, which leads to such unusual phenomena as metallic conductivity in the limit of no carriers and the half-integer quantum Hall effect (QHE) observable even at room temperature [1-3]. Because graphene is only one atom thick, it is also amenable to external influences including mechanical deformation. The latter offers a tempting prospect of controlling graphene's properties by strain and, recently, several reports have examined graphene under uniaxial deformation [4-8]. Although the strain can induce additional Raman features [7,8], no significant changes in graphene's band structure have been either observed or expected for realistic strains of approx. 10% [9-11]. Here we show that a designed strain aligned along three main crystallographic directions induces strong gauge fields [12-14] that effectively act as a uniform magnetic field exceeding 10 T. For a finite doping, the quantizing field results in an insulating bulk and a pair of countercirculating edge states, similar to the case of a topological insulator [15-20]. We suggest realistic ways of creating this quantum state and observing the pseudo-magnetic QHE. We also show that strained superlattices can be used to open significant energy gaps in graphene's electronic spectrum.
Recently, signatures of nonlinear Hall effects induced by Berry-curvature dipoles have been found in atomically thin 1T'/Td-WTe$_2$. In this work, we show that in strained polar transition-metal dichalcogenides(TMDs) with 2H-structures, Berry-curvature dipoles created by spin degrees of freedom lead to strong nonlinear Hall effects. Under an easily accessible uniaxial strain of order 0.2%, strong nonlinear Hall signals, characterized by a Berry-curvature dipole on the order of 1Å, arise in electron-doped polar TMDs such as MoSSe, and this is easily detectable experimentally. Moreover, the magn…
In this paper, the chiral Hall effect of strained Weyl semimetals without any external magnetic field is proposed. Electron-phonon coupling emerges in the low-energy fermionic sector through a pseudogauge potential. We show that, by using chiral kinetic theory, the chiral Hall effect appears as a response to a real time-varying electric field in the presence of structural distortion and it causes spatial chirality and charges separation in a Weyl system. We also show that the coupling of the electrons to acoustic phonons as a gapless excitation leads to emerging an optical absorption peak at $…
Quantum spin Hall (QSH) system can exhibit exotic spin transport phenomena, mediated by its topological edge states. Here a novel concept of bending strain engineering to tune the spin transport properties of a QSH system is demonstrated by both model and first-principles calculations. Interestingly, we discover that bending strain can be used to mitigate the spin conservation of a QSH system to generate a non-zero spin current (SC), meanwhile the preservation of time reversal symmetry renders its edge states topologically protected to transport robust SC without back scattering. This novel ph…
The electronic topology is generally related to the Berry curvature, which can induce the anomalous Hall effect in time-reversal symmetry breaking systems. Intrinsic monolayer transition metal dichalcogenides possesses two nonequivalent K and K' valleys, having Berry curvatures with opposite signs, and thus vanishing anomalous Hall effect in this system. Here we report the experimental realization of asymmetrical distribution of Berry curvature in a single valley in monolayer WSe2 through applying uniaxial strain to break C3v symmetry. As a result, although the Berry curvature itself is still …
Owing to the spin, valley, and orbital symmetries, the lowest Landau level (LL) in bilayer graphene exhibits multicomponent quantum Hall ferromagnetism. Using transport spectroscopy, we investigate the energy gaps of integer and fractional quantum Hall states in bilayer graphene with controlled layer polarization. The state at filling factor ν=1 has two distinct phases: a layer polarized state that has a larger energy gap and is stabilized by high electric field, and a hitherto unobserved interlayer coherent state with a smaller gap that is stabilized by large magnetic field. In contrast, the …
We show that an electric field applied to a strained topological Dirac semimetal, such as Na3Bi and Cd3As2, induces a spin Hall current that is quadratic in the electric field. By regarding the strain as an effective "axial magnetic field" for the Dirac electrons, we investigate the electron and spin transport semiclassically in terms of the chiral kinetic theory. The nonlinear spin Hall effect arises as the cross effect between the regular Hall effect driven by the axial magnetic field and the anomalous Hall effect coming from the momentum-space topology. It provides an efficient way to gener…
The intrinsic spin Hall conductivity of a two-dimensional gas confined to SrTiO$_3$, such as occurs at an LaAlO$_3$/SrTiO$_3$ interface, is calculated from the Kubo formula. The effect of strain in the [001] (normal to the quantum well direction) and the [111] direction is incorporated into a full tight-binding Hamiltonian. We show that the spin-charge conversion ratio can be significantly altered through strain and gate voltage by tuning the chemical potential. Strain direction is also a significant factor in the spin Hall response as this direction affects the alignment of the conduction ban…
When passing an optical medium in the presence of a magnetic field, the polarization of light can be rotated either when reflected at the surface (Kerr effect) or when transmitted through the material (Faraday rotation). This phenomenon is a direct consequence of the optical Hall effect arising from the light-charge carrier interaction in solid state systems subjected to an external magnetic field, in analogy with the conventional Hall effect. The optical Hall effect has been explored in many thin films and also more recently in 2D layered materials. Here, an alternative approach based on stra…
We develop a theory of the valley Hall effect in high-quality graphene samples, in which strain fluctuation-induced random gauge potentials have been suggested as the dominant source of disorder. We find a near-quantized value of valley Hall conductivity in the band transport regime, which originates from an enhanced side jump of a Dirac electron when it scatters off the gauge potential. By assuming a small residue charge density our theory reproduces qualitatively the temperature- and gap-dependence of the observed valley Hall effect at the charge neutral point. Our study suggests that the va…
Quantum spin Hall insulators (QSHIs), also known as two-dimensional topological insulators, have emerged as an unconventional class of quantum states with insulating bulk and conducting edges originating from nontrivial inverted band structures, and have been proposed as a platform for exploring spintronics applications and exotic quasiparticles related to the spin-helical edge modes. Despite theoretical proposals for various materials, however, experimental demonstrations of QSHIs have so far been limited to two systems--HgTe/CdTe and InAs/GaSb--both of which are lattice-matched semiconductor…
Mechanical deformations of graphene induce a term in the Dirac Hamiltonian which is reminiscent of an electromagnetic vector potential. Strain gradients along particular lattice directions induce local pseudomagnetic fields and substantial energy gaps as indeed observed experimentally. Expanding this analogy, we propose to complement the pseudomagnetic field by a pseudoelectric field, generated by a time dependent oscillating stress applied to a graphene ribbon. The joint Hall-like response to these crossed fields results in a strain-induced charge current along the ribbon. We analyze in detai…
Graphene subject to high levels of shear strain leads to strong pseudo-magnetic fields resulting in the emergence of Landau levels. Here we show that, with modest levels of strain, graphene can also sustain a classical valley hall effect (VHE) that can be detected in nonlocal transport measurements. We provide a theory of the strain-induced VHE starting from the quantum Boltzmann equation. This allows us to show that, averaging over short-range impurity configurations destroys quantum coherence between valleys, leaving the elastic scattering time and inter-valley scattering rate as the only pa…
Motivated by the recent discovery of quantized spin Hall effect in InAs/GaSb quantum wells\cite{du2013}$^,$\cite{xu2014}, we theoretically study the effects of in-plane magnetic field and strain effect to the quantization of charge conductance by using Landauer-Butikker formalism. Our theory predicts a robustness of the conductance quantization against the magnetic field up to a very high field of 20 tesla. We use a disordered hopping term to model the strain and show that the strain may help the quantization of the conductance. Relevance to the experiments will be discussed.
We establish topological nature of Hall conductivity of graphene and other $Z_2$ crystals in 2D and 3D in the presence of inhomogeneous perturbations. To this end the lattice Weyl-Wigner formalism is employed. The non-uniform mechanical stress is considered, along with spatially varying magnetic field. The relation of the obtained topological invariant to level counting is clarified.
We demonstrate evidences of electronic transport via topological Dirac surface states in a thin film of strained HgTe. At high perpendicular magnetic fields, we show that the electron transport reaches the quantum Hall regime with vanishing resistance. Furthermore, quantum Hall transport spectroscopy reveals energy splittings of relativistic Landau levels specific to coupled Dirac surface states. This study provides new insights in the quantum Hall effect of topological insulator (TI) slabs, in the cross-over regime between two- and three-dimensional TIs, and in the relevance of thin TI films …
Employing ab initio electronic calculations, we propose a new type of two-dimensional (2D) topological insulator (TI), monolayer (ML) low buckled (LB) mercury telluride (HgTe) and mercury selenide (HgSe), with tunable band gaps. Monolayer LB HgTe undergoes a transition to a topological nontrivial phase under the appropriate in-plane tensile strain (ε > 2.6%) due to the combination effects of strain and spin orbital coupling (SOC). Under the 2.6%< ε <4.2% tensile strain, the band inversion and topological nontrivial gap are induced by the SOC. For ε >4.2%, the band inversion is already realized…
We report low-temperature transport measurements in strained InAs/Ga0.68In0.32Sb quantum wells, which supports time-reversal symmetry-protected helical edge states. The temperature and bias voltage dependence of the helical edge conductance for devices of various sizes are consistent with the theoretical expectation of a weakly interacting helical edge state. Moreover, we found that the magnetoresistance of the helical edge states is related to the edge interaction effect and the disorder strength.
We propose a new family of the d0 orbital XY (X = K, Rb, Cs; Y = N, P, As, Sb, Bi) monolayers with abundant and novel topology and valley properties. The KN, RbN, RbP, RbAs, CsP, CsAs, and CsSb monolayers possess remarkable quantum anomalous Hall effect (QAHE). CsSb monolayer also exhibits extraordinary valley QAHE with giant splitting. Moreover, the topological properties of XY monolayers can be effciently tuned by the in-plane strain, owing to the strain-induced band inversion between the px;y and pz orbitals. Our findings suggest that the d0 orbital XY monolayers can be good candidates for …
We report on a class of quantum spin Hall insulators (QSHIs) in strained-layer InAs/GaInSb quantum wells, in which the bulk gaps are enhanced by up to five folds as compared to the binary InAs/GaSb QSHI. Remarkably, with consequently increasing edge velocity, the edge conductance at zero and applied magnetic fields manifests time reversal symmetry (TRS) -protected properties consistent with Z2 topological insulator. The InAs/GaInSb bilayers offer a much sought-after platform for future studies and applications of the QSHI.
We study the effect of a uniform pseudomagnetic field, induced by a strain in a monolayer and double layer of gapped graphene, acting on excitons. For our analysis it is crucial that the pseudomagnetic field acts on the charges of the constituent particles of the excitons, i.e., the electrons and holes, the same way in contrast to a magnetic field. Moreover, using a circularly polarized laser field, the electrons and the holes can be excited only in one valley of the honeycomb lattice of gapped graphene. This breaks the time-reversal symmetry and provides the possibility to observe the various…
The effects of strain, induced by a Gaussian bump, on the magnetic field dependent transport properties of a graphene Hall bar are investigated. The numerical simulations are performed using both classical and quantum mechanical transport theory and we found that both approaches exhibit similar characteristic features. The effects of the Gaussian bump are manifested by a decrease of the bend resistance, $R_B$, around zero-magnetic field and the occurrence of side-peaks in $R_B$. These features are explained as a consequence of bump-assisted scattering of electrons towards different terminals o…
Modulation of quantum geometry and its coupling to pseudo-electric field by dynamic strain
Tata Institute of Fundamental Research（塔塔基础研究所）；Johannes Gutenberg Universität Mainz（美因茨约翰内斯古腾堡大学）；Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research（贾瓦哈拉尔·尼赫鲁高级科学研究中心）；SASTRA Deemed University（萨斯特拉被视为大学）；National Institute for Materials Science（国家材料科学研究所）
Recently, it has been pointed out that the twisting of bilayer WSe$_2$ would generate topologically non-trivial flat bands near the Fermi energy. In this work, we show that twisted bilayer WSe$_2$ (tWSe$_2$) with uniaxial strain exhibits a large nonlinear Hall (NLH) response due to the non-trivial Berry curvatures of the flat bands. Moreover, the NLH effect is greatly enhanced near the topological phase transition point which can be tuned by a vertical displacement field. Importantly, the nonlinear Hall signal changes sign across the topological phase transition point and provides a way to ide…
In this study, we report first experimental evidence of spin-momentum locking in the topological phonons in an inhomogeneously strained Si thin film. The spin-momentum locking in the topological phonons lead to a longitudinal spin texture or spatially inhomogeneous spin distribution in the freestanding sample structure. The spin texture was uncovered using location dependent Hall effect and planar Hall effect measurement. The charge carrier density and anomalous Hall resistance showed a linear behavior along the length of the sample. Similarly, the planar Hall resistance related with the spin …
The polymorph of ${\rm 8-Pmmn}$ borophene is an anisotropic Dirac material with tilted Dirac cones at two valleys. The tilting of the Dirac cones at two valleys are in opposite direction, which manifests itself via valley dependent Landau levels in presence of an in-plane electric field (Hall field). The sensitivity of the Landau levels on valley index causes valley polarized magnetotransport properties in presence of a Hall field, which is in contrast to the monolayer graphene with isotropic non-tilted Dirac cones. The longitudinal conductivity and Hall conductivity are evaluated by using lin…
Domain walls, topological defects that define the frontier between regions of different stacking in multilayer graphene, have proved to host exciting physics. The ability of tuning these topological defects in-situ in an electronic transport experiment brings a wealth of possibilities in terms of fundamental understanding of domain walls as well as for electronic applications. Here, we demonstrate through a MEMS (micro-electromechanical system) actuator and magnetoresistance measurements the effect of domain walls in multilayer graphene quantum Hall effect. Reversible and controlled uniaxial s…
Nearly aligned graphene on hexagonal boron nitride (G/BN) can be accurately modeled by a Dirac Hamiltonian perturbed by smoothly varying moiré pattern pseudospin fields. Here, we present the moiré-band model of G/BN for arbitrary small twist angles under a framework that combines symmetry considerations with input from ab-initio calculations. Our analysis of the band gaps at the primary and secondary Dirac points highlights the role of inversion symmetry breaking contributions of the moiré patterns, leading to primary Dirac point gaps when the moiré strains give rise to a finite average mass, …
Two dimensional lattices are an important stage for studying many aspects of quantum physics, in particular the topological phases. The valley Hall and anomalous Hall effects are two representative topological phenomena. Here we show that they can be unified in a strained honeycomb lattice, where the hopping strengths between neighboring sites are designed by mimicking those between the Fock states in a three-mode Jaynes-Cummings model. Such a strain induces an effective magnetic field which results in quantized Landau levels. The eigenstates in the zeroth Landau level can be represented by th…
The energy gaps appearing in the fractional quantum Hall effect (FQHE) remain an essential aspect of the investigation. Moreover, the plateau widths in the Hall resistance have been considered simply an effect of disorder as in the integral quantum Hall effect. The existing theories could neither explain the Hall resistance curve owing to plateau widths nor calculate the energy gaps. This study reveals that both the energy gaps and plateau widths contain fundamental many-body aspects of the FQHE. They are found to be connected via the strengths of multi-particle correlations, which do not affe…
Recent experiments reveal that the strained bulk HgTe can be regard as a three-dimensional topological insulator (TI). Motivated by this, we explore the strain effects on the magnetotransport properties of the HgTe surface states at magnetic field. We analytically derive the zero frequency Hall and collisional conductivities, and find that the substrate induced strain associated with the surface index of carriers, can result in the well seperated surface quantum Hall plateaus and Shubnikov-de Haas oscillations. These effects can be used to generate and detect surface polarization.
Recent systematic measurements of the quantum well width dependence of the excitation gaps of fractional quantum Hall states in high mobility samples [Villegas Rosales {\it et al.}, Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 127}, 056801 (2021)] open the possibility of a better quantitative understanding of this important issue. We present what we believe to be accurate theoretical gaps including the effects of finite width and Landau level (LL) mixing. While theory captures the width dependence, there still remains a deviation between the calculated and the measured gaps, presumably caused by disorder. It is cust…
Giant topological Hall effect in strained Fe$_{0.7}$Co$_{0.3}$Si epilayers
电子自旋与实空间磁织构的耦合导致了各种有趣的磁输运效应。在手性B20晶格磁体中经常发现的skyrmionic自旋织构通过实空间Berry相引起拓扑霍尔效应，但它通常相当小。在这里，B20有序的Fe $_{0.7}$ Co $_{0.3}$ Si外延层显示出巨大的拓扑霍尔效应由于三个有利的属性的组合：它们具有高的自旋极化，一个大的普通霍尔系数，和致密的手性自旋纹理。拓扑霍尔电阻率在氦气温度下高达820 n $Ω$ cm。此外，我们观察到的100 N $Ω$厘米的纵向电阻率下降，在低温下在相同的字段范围内，这表明它也是拓扑起源。在商业硅片上以薄膜形式生长的材料中可以发现这种强烈的效应，这对基于skyrmion的自旋电子学来说是个好兆头。
We study temperature effect on anomalous viscosity of Graphene Hall fluid within quantum many-vortex hydrodynamics. The commonly observed filling fractions, $ν$ in the range $0 < ν< 2$ is considered. An expression for anomalous viscosity dependent on a geometric parameter-Hall expansion coefficient, is obtained at finite temperatures. It arises from strained induced pseudo-magnetic field in addition to an anomalous term in vortex velocity, which is responsible for re-normalization of vortex-vortex interactions. We observed that both terms greatly modify the anomalous viscosity as well as an en…
Owing to their wide tunability, spin- and valley internal degrees of freedom, and low disorder, graphene heterostructures are emerging as a promising experimental platform for fractional quantum Hall (FQH) studies. Surprisingly, however, transport measurements reveal many fewer FQH states than bulk capacitive probes. Here, we report the fabrication of dual graphite-gated monolayer graphene devices in an edgeless Corbino-type geometry that showing deep FQH sequences. Thermal activation gaps reveal a tunable crossover between single- and multi-component FQH states in the zero energy Landau level…
