Valley-dependent transport in strain engineering graphene heterojunctions

TL;DR

This paper investigates how strain and on-site energies influence valley-dependent electron transport in graphene heterojunctions, enabling potential control for valleytronics applications.

Contribution

It demonstrates that strain and on-site energies can be used to modulate valley-dependent transport properties in graphene heterojunctions, a novel approach for valleytronics.

Findings

Valley-dependent electron separation achieved via strain and on-site energies.

Transmission can be tuned by adjusting strain strength.

Transport angles of valleys can be significantly altered with on-site energy.

Abstract

We study the effect of the strain on the band structure and the valley-dependent transport property of graphene heterojunctions. It is found that valley-dependent separation of electrons can be achieved by utilizing the strain and on-site energies. In the presence of the strain, the values of the transmission can be effectively adjusted by changing the strengths of the strain, while the transport angle basically keeps unchanged. When an extra on-site energy is simultaneously applied to the central scattering region, not only are the electrons of valleys K and K' separated into two distinct transmission lobes in opposite transverse directions, but the transport angles of two valleys can be significantly changed. Therefore, one can realize an effective modulation of valley-dependent transport by changing the strength and stretch angle of the strain and on-site energies, which can be exploited for graphene-based valleytronics devices.