A type-II MnPSe3/GeC heterostructure with tunable spin and valley splitting

The ternary chalcogenide MnPSe3 monolayer recently gets a lot of attention because of its two nonequivalent energy valleys. The existence of spin–orbit coupling (SOC) effect can cause the valley splitting of around 24 meV. However, the spin degeneracy is still kept in MnPSe3 monolayer owing to the a...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Tongwei Li, Jing Chen, Kai Tian, Xin Jiang, Xinyao Wu, Haisheng Li, Weiwei Ju
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Elsevier 2023-05-01
Series:Results in Physics
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Online Access:http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2211379723002486
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Summary:The ternary chalcogenide MnPSe3 monolayer recently gets a lot of attention because of its two nonequivalent energy valleys. The existence of spin–orbit coupling (SOC) effect can cause the valley splitting of around 24 meV. However, the spin degeneracy is still kept in MnPSe3 monolayer owing to the antiferromagnetic coupling between Mn2+ ions. The interlayer coupling effect in the van der Waals (vdW) heterostructures can break the symmetry of MnPSe3 and induce the spin splitting. Here, we simulate the MnPSe3/GeC vdW heterostructure and investigate the effects of the stacking and interlayer coupling effect on both spin and valley splitting. The excitation mode of valley excitons is greatly related to the stacking of heterostructures. The interlayer excitons can only be formed in one of the configurations with C3 symmetry according to optical selection transition rule. The interlayer coupling effect is modulated by changing interlayer distance. With vertical compressive strain (−20%), the spin and valley splitting higher than 50 meV and 30 meV can be obtained in MnPSe3/GeC vdW heterostructures, respectively. This study suggests that the stacking and vertical strain are both efficient approaches to modulate the spin and valley splitting through the interlayer coupling effect in the vdW heterostructures.
ISSN:2211-3797