Gate-field control of valley polarization in valleytronics

Valleytronics materials are a kind of special semiconductors which can host multiple symmetry-connected and well-separated electron or hole pockets in the Brillouin zone when the system is slightly n or p doped. Since the low-energy particles residing in these pockets generally are not easily scattered to each other by small perturbations, they are endowed with an additional valley degree of freedom. Analogous to spin, the valley freedom can be used to process information, leading to the concept of valleytronics. The prerequisite for valleytronics is the generation of valley polarization. Thus, a focus in this field is achieving the electric generation of valley polarization, especially the static generation by the gate electric field alone. In this work, we briefly review the latest progress in this research direction, focusing on the concepts of the couplings between valley and layer, i.e., the valley–layer coupling which permits the gate-field control of the valley polarization, the couplings between valley, layer, and spin in magnetic systems, the physical properties, the novel designing schemes for electronic devices, and the material realizations of the gate-controlled valleytronics materials.