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Emergence of interface states in graphene/transition metal dichalcogenide heterostructures with lateral interface

Power, Stephen orcid logoORCID: 0000-0003-4566-628X and Khatibi, Zahra (2023) Emergence of interface states in graphene/transition metal dichalcogenide heterostructures with lateral interface. Physical Review B, 108 . ISSN 24699950

Abstract
The relative strength of different proximity spin-orbit couplings in graphene on transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs) can be tuned via the metal composition in the TMDC layer. While Formula Presented has a normal gap, proximity to Formula Presented instead leads to valley-Zeeman-driven inverted bands. Although the Formula Presented index vanishes, these systems enable a concentration-dependent topological crossover with band gap closure when graphene is stacked on a composite or alloyed TMDC layer. This is due to a nonzero Berry curvature at the individual valleys, i.e., a hallmark of the quantum valley Hall effect and a change in the valley Chern index at a critical composition ratio. Therefore, inherently, we also expect that stacked heterostructures of graphene on composite TMDC layers should host localized boundary modes due to the presence of Formula Presented- and Formula Presented-like domains with opposite valley Chern indices. In this study, we show that a Gr/(Mo-Formula Presented heterostructure with a lateral interface in the TMDC layer can indeed host valley-dependent topologically protected in-gap propagating modes, similar to those at the border of commensurate AB and BA domains in biased minimally-twisted bilayer graphene. However, the stability of these modes depends crucially on the system size. We demonstrate that the electronic behavior of Gr/(Mo-Formula Presented heterostructures evolves from a homogeneous effective medium to a superposition of domain-localized bands and zero-energy branch crossings as the domain size in the alloyed TMDC layer is increased.
Metadata
Item Type:Article (Published)
Refereed:Yes
Uncontrolled Keywords:Electronic structure; Spin-orbit coupling; Spintronics; Topological materials; 2-dimensional systems; Graphene Interfaces;Transition metal dichalcogenides; Density functional calculations; Tight-binding model
Subjects:Physical Sciences > Chemistry
Physical Sciences > Physics
DCU Faculties and Centres:UNSPECIFIED
Publisher:American Physical Society
Official URL:https://journals.aps.org/prb/abstract/10.1103/Phys...
Copyright Information:Authors
ID Code:30308
Deposited On:02 Sep 2025 08:48 by Vidatum Academic . Last Modified 02 Sep 2025 08:48
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