Spin, anomalous, and valley Hall effects in graphene-based hybrid structures are studied theoretically within the Green function formalism and linear response theory. Two different types of hybrid systems are considered in detail: (i) graphene/boron nitride/cobalt(nickel), and (ii) graphene/YIG. The main interest is focused on the proximity-induced exchange interaction between graphene and magnetic substrate and on the proximity-enhanced spin-orbit coupling. The proximity effects are shown to have a significant influence on the electronic and spin transport properties of graphene. To find the spin, anomalous and valley Hall conductivities we employ certain effective Hamiltonians which have been proposed recently for the hybrid systems under considerations. Both anomalous and valley Hall conductivities have universal values when the Fermi level is inside the energy gap in the electronic spectrum.
We consider the fluctuation-induced (Casimir) pressure in peptide films deposited on GaAs, Ge, and ZnS substrates which are either in dielectric or metallic state. Calculations of the Casimir pressure are performed in the framework of fundamental Lifshitz theory employing the frequency-dependent dielectric permittivities of all involved materials. The electric conductivity of semiconductor substrates is taken into account within the experimentally and thermodynamically consistent approach. According to our results, the Casimir pressure in peptide films deposited on dielectric-type semiconducto…
Quasiparticle spectra and excitons of organic molecules deposited on substrates: G0W0-BSE approach applied to benzene on graphene and metallic substrates
Motivated by theoretical predictions that spatially complex concentration modulations of Si and Ge can increase the valley splitting in quantum wells, we grow and characterize Si/SiGe heterostructures with a thin, pure Ge layer at the top of the quantum well using chemical vapor deposition. We show that these heterostructures remain hosts for high-mobility electron gases. We measure two quantum wells with approximately five monolayers of pure Ge at the upper barrier, finding mobilities as high as 70,000 cm$^2$/Vs, compared to 100,000 cm$^2$/Vs measured in samples with no Ge layer. Activation e…
The use of relative twist angle between adjacent atomic layers in a van der Waals heterostructure, has emerged as a new degree of freedom to tune electronic and optoelectronic properties of devices based on 2D materials. Using ABA-stacked trilayer (TLG) graphene as the model system, we show that, contrary to conventional wisdom, the band structures of 2D materials are systematically tunable depending on their relative alignment angle between hexagonal BN (hBN), even at very large twist angles. Moreover, addition or removal of the hBN substrate results in an inversion of the K and K' valley in …
In monolayers of the semiconducting transition metal dichalcogenides, the electron-hole exchange interaction splits the exciton dispersion into a massive transverse branch, and a longitudinal branch that has very light or even zero mass depending on the form of screened Coulomb interaction. The group velocity of the longitudinal branch is sensitive to the strength of electron-hole exchange, which can be engineered through the dielectric environment. Here we show that dielectric patterning of the substrate can be exploited to realize waveguide of the exciton in the longitudinal branch in a homo…
Silicene and germanene are key materials for the field of valleytronics. However, interaction with the substrate, which is necessary to support the electronically active medium, becomes a major obstacle. In the present work, we propose a substrate (F-doped WS$_2$) that avoids detrimental effects and at the same time induces the required valley polarization, so that no further steps are needed for this purpose. The behavior is explained by proximity effects on silicene/germanene, as demonstrated by first-principles calculations. Broken inversion symmetry due to the presence of WS$_2$ opens a su…
Valley degrees of freedom, providing a novel way to increase capacity and efficiency of information processing, have become an important instrument for photonics. Experimental studies on photonic topological valley kink states at interfaces between regions with opposite valley-Chern numbers have attracted much attention, however, were restricted to zigzag-type interfaces, largely limiting their applications such as geometry-dependent topological channel intersections. Here, we experimentally demonstrate and manipulate valley kink states at generic interfaces in subwavelength substrate-integrat…
Recent experiments show the possibility of realization of the Majorana quasiparticles at the end of the low dimensional structures. In this type of systems, interplay between spin orbit coupling, superconductivity and magnetic field leads to the emergence of the Majorana bound states in the topologically non-trivial phase. Here, we study the nanowire located partially at the normal and superconducting base, using microscopic model of this structure and the Bogoliubov--de~Gennes technique. We discuss the possibility of the leakage of the Majorana bound state, located at the part above supercond…
In the presence of external magnetic field the Fermi-liquid state supports oscillatory spin modes known as Silin modes. We predict the existence of the generalized Silin modes in a multivalley system, monolayer graphene. A gauge- and Berry-gauge- invariant kinetic equation for a multivalley Fermi liquid is developed and applied to the case of graphene with extrinsic spin-orbit coupling (SOC). The interplay of SOC and Berry curvature allows for the excitation of generalized Silin modes in the spin and valley-staggered-spin channels via an AC electric field. The resonant contributions from these…
Using time-resolved optical Kerr rotation, we measure the low temperature valley dynamics of resident electrons and holes in exfoliated WSe$_2$ monolayers as a systematic function of carrier density. In an effort to reconcile the many disparate timescales of carrier valley dynamics in monolayer semiconductors reported to date, we directly compare the doping-dependent valley relaxation in two electrostatically-gated WSe$_2$ monolayers having different dielectric environments. In a fully-encapsulated structure (hBN/WSe$_2$/hBN, where hBN is hexagonal boron nitride), valley relaxation is found to…
Graphene deposited on top of a Copper(111) substrate may develop a Y-shaped Kekulé bond texture (Kekulé-Y), locking the momentum of its Dirac fermions with its valley degree of freedom. As a consequence, the valley degeneracy of its band structure is broken, generating an energy dispersion with two nested Dirac cones with different Fermi velocities. In this work, we investigate the dynamics of electronic wave packets in the Kekulé-Y superlattice. We show that, as a result of the valley-momentum coupling, a valley-driven oscillatory motion of the wave packets ({\it Zitterbewegung}) could appear…
We present detailed Raman studies of graphene deposited on gallium nitride nanowires with different variations in height. Our results show that different density and height of nanowires being in contact with graphene impact graphene properties like roughness, strain and carrier concentration as well as density and type of induced defects. Detailed analysis of Raman spectra of graphene deposited on different nanowire substrates shows that bigger differences in nanowires height increase graphene strain, while higher number of nanowires in contact with graphene locally reduce the strain. Moreover…
The spin-orbit coupling can lead to exotic states of matter and unexpected behavior of the system properties. In this paper, we investigate the influence of spin-orbit coupling induced by proximity effects on a monolayer of superconductor (with s-wave or d-wave pairing) placed on an insulating bulk. We show that the critical temperatures $T_{c}$ of the superconducting states can be tuned by the spin-orbit coupling both in the case of on-site and inter-site pairing. Moreover, we discuss a possibility of changing the location of the maximal $T_{c}$ from the half-filling into the underdoped or ov…
Electronic charge redistribution in LaAlO$_3$(001) thin films deposited at SrTiO$_3$(001) substrate: First principles analysis and the role of stoichiometry
Atomically thin materials, like semiconducting transition metal dichalcogenides (S-TMDs), are highly sensitive to the environment. This opens up an opportunity to externally control their properties by changing their surroundings. We investigate the effect of several metallic substrates on the optical properties of MoSe$_2$ monolayer (ML) deposited on top of them with photoluminescence and reflectance contrast techniques. The optical spectra of MoSe$_{2}$ MLs deposited on Pt, Au, Mo and Zr have distinctive metal-related lineshapes. In particular, a substantial variation in the intensity ratio …
The influence of a patterned substrate on obliquely deposited, exchange biased Co/CoO films was studied. It was found that substrates decorated with nanoparticle patterns provide the option to manipulate the orientation of the magnetic easy axis in obliquely deposited thin films. The complementary methods of SQUID magnetometry and polarized neutron reflectometry were used to disentangle the different contributions to the magnetic hysteresis of such complex magnetic systems.
Extensive researches have revealed that valley, a binary degree of freedom (DOF), can be an excellent candidate of information carrier. Recently, valley DOF has been introduced into photonic systems, and several valley-Hall photonic topological insulators (PTIs) have been experimentally demonstrated. However, in the previous valley-Hall PTIs, topological kink states only work at a single frequency band, which limits potential applications in multiband waveguides, filters, communications, and so on. To overcome this challenge, here we experimentally demonstrate a valley-Hall PTI, where the topo…
We reveal giant proximity-induced magnetism and valley-polarization effects in Janus Pt dichalcogenides (such as SPtSe), when bound to the Europium oxide (EuO) substrate. Using first-principles simulations, it is surprisingly found that the charge redistribution, resulting from proximity with EuO, leads to the formation of two K and K$^{'}$valleys in the conduction bands. Each of these valleys displays its own spin polarization and a specific spin-texture dictated by broken inversion and time-reversal symmetries, and valley-exchange and Rashba splittings as large as hundreds of meV. This provi…
We present electronic structure and quantum transport calculations that predict conducting channels induced in graphene quantum dots by lines of adsorbed hydrogen atoms to function as highly efficient, experimentally realizable valley filters, accumulators and switches. The underlying physics is a novel property of graphene Dirac point resonances (DPRs) that is revealed here, namely, that an electric current passing through a DPR-mediated conducting channel in a given direction is carried by electrons of em only one of the two graphene valleys. Our predictions apply to lines of hydrogen atoms …
We have performed scanning tunneling microscope (STM) and angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) in Pb-deposited bilayer Graphene (BLG) on SiC(0001) substrate to investigate the dependence of the electronic structures on Pb-deposition amount. We have observed that the Pb atoms form islands by STM and the $π$ bands of the BLG shift toward the Fermi level by ARPES. This hole-doping-like energy shift is enhanced as the amount of Pb is increased, and we were able to tune the Dirac gap to the Fermi level by 4 ML deposition. Considering the band dispersion, we suggest that hole-doping-lik…
We performed Scanning Thermal Microscopy measurements on single layers of chemical-vapor-deposited -CVD- graphene supported by different substrates, namely SiO2, Al2O3 and PET using a double-scan technique to remove the contribution to the heat flux through the air and the cantilever. Then, by adopting a simple lumped-elements model, we developed a new method that allows determining, through a multi-step numerical analysis, the equivalent thermal properties of thermally conductive coatings of nanometric thickness. In this specific case we found that our CVD graphene is thermally equivalent, fo…
The incidence of intra-flake heterogeneity of spectroscopic and electrical properties in chemical vapour deposited (CVD) WS2 flakes is explored in a multi-physics investigation, via spatially resolved spectroscopic maps correlated with electrical, electronic and mechanical properties. The investigation demonstrates that the three-fold symmetric segregation of spectroscopic response (photoluminescence and Raman (spectral and intensity)), in topographically uniform WS2 flakes are accompanied by commensurate segmentation of electronic properties e.g. local carrier density and the differences in t…
Defect induced magnetism is reported in undoped aluminium nitride thin films deposited using reactive ion beam sputtering of aluminium in nitrogen plasma. The films have been deposited on silicon substrate at different temperatures. Existence of the defects in the films have been verified using room temperature photo-luminescence measurements. Owing to nano crystalline nature of the films, super-magnetic ground states have been observed. A cross-over from super paramagnetic to super spin glass state has been observed as the grain density increases. Detailed magnetisation measurements along wit…
We find that the Casimir pressure in peptide films deposited on metallic substrates is always repulsive which makes these films less stable. It is shown that by adding a graphene sheet on top of peptide film one can change the sign of the Casimir pressure by making it attractive. For this purpose, the formalism of the Lifshitz theory is extended to the case when the film and substrate materials are described by the frequency-dependent dielectric permittivities, whereas the response of graphene to the electromagnetic field is governed by the polarization tensor in (2+1)-dimensional space-time f…
The two-dimensional (2D) semiconductor molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) has attracted widespread attention for its extraordinary electrical, optical, spin and valley related properties. Here, we report on spin polarized tunneling through chemical vapor deposited (CVD) multilayer MoS2 (~7 nm) at room temperature in a vertically fabricated spin-valve device. A tunnel magnetoresistance (TMR) of 0.5 - 2 % has been observed, corresponding to spin polarization of 5 - 10 % in the measured temperature range of 300 - 75 K. First principles calculations for ideal junctions results in a tunnel magnetoresistan…
Recent experiments have shown the signatures of Majorana bound states at the ends of magnetic chains deposited on a superconducting substrate. Here, we employ first principles calculations to directly investigate the topological properties of $3d$ transition metal nanochains (i.e., Mn, Cr, Fe and Co). In contrast to the previous studies [Nadj-Perge et al. Science 346, 602 (2014) and Ruby et al. Nano Lett. 17, 4473 (2017)], we found the exact tight binding models in the Wannier orbital basis for the isolated chains as well as for the surface--deposited wires. Based on these models, we calculate…
The honeycomb lattice sets the basic arena for numerous ideas to implement electronic, photonic, or phononic topological bands in (meta-)materials. Novel opportunities to manipulate Dirac electrons in graphene through band engineering arise from superlattice potentials as induced by a substrate such as hexagonal boron-nitride. Making use of the general form of a weak substrate potential as dictated by symmetry, we analytically derive the low-energy minibands of the superstructure, including a characteristic 1.5 Dirac cone deriving from a three-band crossing at the Brillouin zone edge. Assuming…
