Tracking the spin-valley current

Valleytronics Taking advantage of the electron's spin and valley degrees of freedom requires a method for generating currents of carriers that have a particular spin or come from a particular valley in the electronic structure. Jin et al. used a heterostructure made out of adjacent layers of WSe2 and WS2 to create a spin-valley diffusion current without applying an external electric field. Instead, they used circularly polarized laser light to initiate the diffusion and a second laser pulse to image the propagation of the carriers. With long lifetimes and diffusion lengths, the method may be of practical use in future valleytronic devices. Science , this issue p. [893][1] [1]: /lookup/doi/10.1126/science.aao3503