Spin valleytronics in silicene: Quantum spin Hall-quantum anomalous Hall insulators and single-valley semimetals

Valley-based electronics, known as valleytronics, is one of the keys to breaking through to a new stage of electronics. The valley degree of freedom is ubiquitous in the honeycomb lattice system. The honeycomb lattice structure of silicon, called silicene, is a fascinating playground of valleytronics. We investigate topological phases of silicene by introducing different exchange fields on the A and B sites. There emerges a rich variety of topologically protected states, each of which has a characteristic spin-valley structure. The single Diraccone semimetal is such a state where one gap is closed while the other three gaps are open, evading the Nielsen-Ninomiya fermion-doubling problem. We have newly discovered a hybrid topological insulator named the quantum spin-quantum anomalous Hall insulator, where the quantum anomalous Hall effect occurs at one valley and the quantum spin Hall effect occurs at the other valley. Along its phase boundary, single-valley semimetals emerge, where only one of the two valleys is gapless with degenerated spins. These semimetals are also topologically protected because they appear in the interface of different topological insulators. Such a spin-valley-dependent physics will be observed by optical absorption or edge modes. DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevB.87.155415