Valley-polarized and supercollimated electronic transport in an 8-Pmmn borophene superlattice

Abstract

Analogous to real spins, valleys as carriers of information can play significant roles in physical properties of two-dimensional Dirac materials. On the other hand, utilizing external periodic potential is an efficient method to manipulate their band structures and transport properties. In this work, we investigate the valley dependent optics-like behaviors based on an 8-Pmmn borophene superlattice with the transfer matrix method and effective band approach. Firstly, it is found that the band structure is renormalized, more tilted Dirac cones are generated, and the group velocities are modified by the periodic potentials. Secondly, due to the exotic tilted Dirac cones in 8-Pmmn borophene, a perfect valley selected angle filter can be realized. The electrons with a specific incident angle can transmit completely in an energy window, which is flexibly tunable by changing the periodic potential. Thirdly, by using the Green’s function to simulate the time evolution of wave packets, electrons can be shown to propagate without any diffraction, valley electron beam supercollimation happens by modulating the potential parameters. Different from the graphene superlattice, the electron supercollimation here is valley dependent and can be used as a valley electron beam collimator. Fourthly, we can tune the polarization and supercollimation angles by changing the superlattice direction. These intriguing results in an 8-Pmmn borophene-based superlattice offer more opportunities in diverse electronic transport phenomena and may facilitate the devices applications in valleytronics and electron-optics.