Valley Valves at Domain Walls in Symmetry-Broken Rhombohedral Graphene
6 affiliations
- 1Department of Physics , Florida State University , Tallahassee , FL , 32306 , U.S.A
- 2National High Magnetic Field Laboratory , Tallahassee , FL , 32310 , U.S.A
- 3Instituto de Ciencia de Materiales de Madrid (ICMM) , CSIC , 28049 Madrid , Spain
- 4Donostia International Physics Center , Paseo Manuel de Lardizábal 4 , 20018 San Sebastián , Spain and
- 5IMDEA Nanoscience , C/ Faraday 9 , 28049 Madrid , Spain
- 6Department of Physics and Astronomy , University of Pennsylvania , Philadelphia , PA 19104 , U.S.A
Abstract
Rhombohedral multilayer graphene polarized by a moderate perpendicular displacement field hosts a time-reversal-symmetry-breaking valley-and-spin-polarized metallic phase that may condense into a chiral superconductor. Recent magnetic imaging and transport measurements in this unconventional system suggest the presence of domain walls both in the metallic and superconducting phases. In this work, we show that valley domain walls are impenetrable barriers to transport in the metallic regime. Transmission through such a domain wall must therefore be mediated by intervalley interactions. We derive the symmetry-allowed terms and show via microscopic numerical simulations that they enable the transmission of electrons across the domain wall. In the superconducting phase, we find that intervalley mixing is crucial for supporting an appreciable supercurrent through a SNS' Josephson junction that connects opposite-chirality superconducting regions. Taken together, our work elucidates the nature of domain walls in these experimentally relevant multilayer systems and emphasizes the critical role of intervalley hybridization in governing their transport properties.
Related
- Ideal limit of rhombohedral graphene: Dynamical skyrmion lattices and their excitations
- Crystals caught doping: Metallic Wigner crystals in rhombohedral graphene
- Berry trash can: A model of interacting electrons in rhombohedral graphene
- Superconductivity from dual-surface carriers in rhombohedral graphene
- Rhombohedral Graphene: A Tale of Many Crystals
BibTeX
@misc{phong2026valley,
title = {{Valley Valves at Domain Walls in Symmetry-Broken Rhombohedral Graphene}},
author = {Vo Tien Phong and Francisco Lobo and Elsa Prada and Pablo San-José and F. Guinea and E. J. Melé},
howpublished = {arXiv (Cornell University)},
year = {2026},
month = jun,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2606.14878},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.14878},
note = {CC BY},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Valley Valves at Domain Walls in Symmetry-Broken Rhombohedral Graphene
AU - Vo Tien Phong
AU - Francisco Lobo
AU - Elsa Prada
AU - Pablo San-José
AU - F. Guinea
AU - E. J. Melé
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/06/12
PB - arXiv (Cornell University)
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2606.14878
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.14878
AB - Rhombohedral multilayer graphene polarized by a moderate perpendicular displacement field hosts a time-reversal-symmetry-breaking valley-and-spin-polarized metallic phase that may condense into a chiral superconductor. Recent magnetic imaging and transport measurements in this unconventional system suggest the presence of domain walls both in the metallic and superconducting phases. In this work, we show that valley domain walls are impenetrable barriers to transport in the metallic regime. Transmission through such a domain wall must therefore be mediated by intervalley interactions. We derive the symmetry-allowed terms and show via microscopic numerical simulations that they enable the transmission of electrons across the domain wall. In the superconducting phase, we find that intervalley mixing is crucial for supporting an appreciable supercurrent through a SNS' Josephson junction that connects opposite-chirality superconducting regions. Taken together, our work elucidates the nature of domain walls in these experimentally relevant multilayer systems and emphasizes the critical role of intervalley hybridization in governing their transport properties.
SN - 2331-8422
ER -