Valleytronics in 2D materials

Semiconductor technology is currently based on the manipulation of electronic charge; however, electrons have additional degrees of freedom, such as spin and valley, that can be used to encode and process information. Over the past several decades, there has been significant progress in manipulating electron spin for semiconductor spintronic devices, motivated by potential spin-based information processing and storage applications. However, experimental progress towards manipulating the valley degree of freedom for potential valleytronic devices has been limited until very recently. We review the latest advances in valleytronics, which have largely been enabled by the isolation of 2D materials (such as graphene and semiconducting transition metal dichalcogenides) that host an easily accessible electronic valley degree of freedom, allowing for dynamic control. The energy extrema of an electronic band are referred to as valleys. In 2D materials, two distinguishable valleys can be used to encode information and explore other valleytronic applications.