Division for Electricity, Uppsala University, Box 534, S-751 21 Uppsala, Sweden.
Nat Mater. 2013 Aug;12(8):760-4. doi: 10.1038/nmat3694. Epub 2013 Jul 14.
Standard electronic devices encode bits of information by controlling the amount of electric charge in the circuits. Alternatively, it is possible to make devices that rely on other properties of electrons than their charge. For example, spintronic devices make use of the electron spin angular momentum as a carrier of information. A new concept is valleytronics in which information is encoded by the valley quantum number of the electron. The analogy between the valley and spin degrees of freedom also implies the possibility of valley-based quantum computing. In this Article, we demonstrate for the first time generation, transport (across macroscopic distances) and detection of valley-polarized electrons in bulk diamond with a relaxation time of 300 ns at 77 K. We anticipate that these results will form the basis for the development of integrated valleytronic devices.
标准电子设备通过控制电路中的电荷量来编码信息位。或者，也可以制造依赖于电子除电荷以外的其他性质的设备。例如，基于电子自旋的自旋电子学利用电子自旋角动量作为信息载体。一种新的概念是谷电子学，其中信息通过电子的谷量子数进行编码。谷自由度和自旋自由度之间的类比也暗示了基于谷的量子计算的可能性。在本文中，我们首次在体金刚石中演示了谷极化电子的产生、传输（跨越宏观距离）和检测，在 77 K 时的弛豫时间为 300 ns。我们预计这些结果将为集成谷电子学器件的发展奠定基础。
