Dirac-Rashba fermions and quantum valley Hall insulators in graphene-based 2D heterostructures

TL;DR

This paper investigates how stacking graphene with transition metal dichalcogenides modifies its electronic properties, revealing Dirac-Rashba fermions and quantum valley Hall effects through first-principles calculations and effective models.

Contribution

It introduces a low-energy model for graphene-TMD heterostructures that captures Dirac-Rashba fermions and quantum valley Hall effects, expanding understanding of 2D heterostructure electronic behavior.

Findings

Dirac bands are modified but retain linear dispersion.

Dirac-Rashba fermions are present in specific heterostructures.

Quantum valley Hall effect is observed in these systems.

Abstract

It is highly desirable to modify and improve the Dirac electron system of graphene for novel electronic properties and promising applications. For this purpose, we study 2D heterostructures consisting of graphene and monolayer TMDs by means of first-principles calculation and effective low-energy hamiltonian model. We determine the model parameters by fitting with the first-prinples bands. MoSe$_2$ and WSe$_2$ are chosen in order to align the Dirac cones of graphene with the intrinsic Fermi levels of the TMDs. It is found that the Dirac energy bands of graphene are modified, but the linear band dispersion near the cones is kept. It is shown that the effective low-energy model hosts Dirac-Rashba feimions in the WSe$_2$/graphene and MoSe$_2$/graphene/WSe$_2$, and there is quantum valley Hall effect in these graphene-based 2D heterostructures. Our further analyses indicate that there are strong interactions between the orbitals and spins especially near the K and K' points. These can be useful in further exploration for novel properties and more functionalities in 2D heterostructures.