No Arabic abstract
Since its discovery, Berry phase has been demonstrated to play an important role in many quantum systems. In gapped Bernal bilayer graphene, the Berry phase can be continuously tuned from zero to 2pi, which offers a unique opportunity to explore the tunable Berry phase on the physical phenomena. Here, we report experimental observation of Berry phases-induced valley splitting and crossing in moveable bilayer graphene p-n junction resonators. In our experiment, the bilayer graphene resonators are generated by combining the electric field of scanning tunneling microscope tip with the gap of bilayer graphene. A perpendicular magnetic field changes the Berry phase of the confined bound states in the resonators from zero to 2pi continuously and leads to the Berry phase difference for the two inequivalent valleys in the bilayer graphene. As a consequence, we observe giant valley splitting and unusual valley crossing of the lowest bound states. Our results indicate that the bilayer graphene resonators can be used to manipulate the valley degree of freedom in valleytronics.
The phase of a quantum state may not return to its original value after the systems parameters cycle around a closed path; instead, the wavefunction may acquire a measurable phase difference called the Berry phase. Berry phases typically have been accessed through interference experiments. Here, we demonstrate an unusual Berry-phase-induced spectroscopic feature: a sudden and large increase in the energy of angular-momentum states in circular graphene p-n junction resonators when a small critical magnetic field is reached. This behavior results from turning on a $pi$-Berry phase associated with the topological properties of Dirac fermions in graphene. The Berry phase can be switched on and off with small magnetic field changes on the order of 10 mT, potentially enabling a variety of optoelectronic graphene device applications.
Berry phase plays an important role in determining many physical properties of quantum systems. However, a Berry phase altering energy spectrum of a quantum system is comparatively rare. Here, we report an unusual tunable valley polarized energy spectra induced by continuously tunable Berry phase in Bernal-stacked bilayer graphene quantum dots. In our experiment, the Berry phase of electron orbital states is continuously tuned from about pi to 2pi by perpendicular magnetic fields. When the Berry phase equals pi or 2pi, the electron states in the two inequivalent valleys are energetically degenerate. By altering the Berry phase to noninteger multiples of pi, large and continuously tunable valley polarized energy spectra are detected in our experiment. The observed Berry phase-induced valley splitting, on the order of 10 meV at a magnetic field of 1 T, is about 100 times larger than Zeeman splitting for spin, shedding light on graphene-based valleytronics.
Valley is a useful degree of freedom for non-dissipative electronics since valley current that can flow even in an insulating material does not accompany electronic current. We use dual-gated bilayer graphene in the Hall bar geometry to electrically control broken inversion symmetry or Berry curvature as well as the carrier density to generate and detect the pure valley current. We find a large nonlocal resistance and a cubic scaling between the nonlocal resistance and the local resistivity in the insulating regime at zero-magnetic field and 70 K as evidence of the pure valley current. The electrical control of the valley current in the limit of zero conductivity allows non-dissipative induction of valley current from electric field and thus provides a significant contribution to the advancement of non-dissipative electronics.
When a gap of tunable size opens at the conic band intersections of graphene, the Berry phase does not vanish abruptly, but progressively decreases as the gap increases. The phase depends on the reciprocal-space path radius, i.e., for a doped system, the Fermi wave vector. The phase and its observable consequences can thus be tuned continuously via gap opening --by a modulating potential induced by strain, epitaxy, or nanostructuration-- and doping adjustment.
We demonstrate that dislocations in the graphene lattice give rise to electron Berry phases equivalent to quantized values {0,1/3,-1/3} in units of the flux quantum, but with an opposite sign for the two valleys. An elementary scale consideration of a graphene Aharonov-Bohm ring equipped with valley filters on both terminals, encircling a dislocation, says that in the regime where the intervalley mean free path is large compared to the intravalley phase coherence length, such that the valley quantum numbers can be regarded as conserved on the relevant scale, the coherent valley-polarized currents sensitive to the topological phases have to traverse the device many times before both valleys contribute, and this is not possible at intermediate temperatures where the latter length becomes of order of the device size, thus leading to an apparent violation of the basic law of linear transport that magnetoconductance is even in the applied flux. We discuss this discrepancy in the Feynman path picture of dephasing, when addressing the transition from quantum to classical dissipative transport. We also investigate this device in the scattering matrix formalism, accounting for the effects of decoherence by the Buttiker dephasing voltage probe type model which conserves the valleys, where the magnetoconductance remains even in the flux, also when different decoherence times are allowed for the individual, time reversal connected, valleys.