Nagaoka spin-valley ordering in silicene quantum dots

TL;DR

This paper investigates spin and valley polarization phenomena in silicene quantum dots, revealing conditions for spontaneous valley polarization and the effects of spin-orbit coupling on ground-state properties.

Contribution

It demonstrates the emergence of valley polarization in silicene quantum dots driven by inter-dot tunneling and electron interactions, with and without intrinsic spin-orbit coupling.

Findings

Valley polarization occurs in the ground state with frozen spin and no spin-orbit coupling.

Strong spin-orbit coupling induces spin-valley anticorrelation without external magnetic fields.

Inter-valley scattering is negligible in certain cluster geometries.

Abstract

We study a cluster of quantum dots defined within silicene that host confined electron states with spin and valley degrees of freedom. Atomistic tight-binding and continuum Dirac approximation are applied for few-electron system in quest for spontaneous valley polarization driven by inter-dot tunneling and electron-electron interaction, i.e. a valley counterpart of itinerary Nagaoka ferromagnetic ordering recently identified in GaAs square cluster of quantum dots with three excess electrons [P. Dehollain, {\it et al.}, Nature {\bf 579}, 528 (2020)]. We find that for Hamiltonian without intrinsic-spin orbit coupling -- similar to the one of graphene with staggered potential -- the valley polarization in the ground-state can be observed in a range of inter-dot spacing provided that the spin of the system is frozen by external magnetic field. The inter-valley scattering effects are negligible for cluster geometry that supports the valley polarized ground-state. In presence of a strong intrinsic spin-orbit coupling that is characteristic to graphene no external magnetic field is necessary for observation of ground-state that is polarized in both spin and valley. The effective magnetic field due to the spin-orbit interaction produces a perfect anticorrelation of the spin and valley isospin components in the degenerate ground-state.