Normal electric field enhanced light-induced polarizations and magnetic detection of valley polarization in silicene

Abstract

Abstract The role of staggered potential on light-induced spin and pseudo-spin polarization has been investigated in silicene. It has been shown that non-equilibrium spin and pseudo-spin polarizations are emerged in silicene sheet by applying an external perpendicular electric field in the presence of circularly polarized light emission. This electric field results in pseudo-spin resolved states very close to the Dirac points therefore could be considered as a pseudomagnetic field. It has been shown that staggered potential induced spin-valley locking and pseudo-spin resolved bands are responsible for the enhancement of the spin and pseudo-spin polarizations. Meanwhile, spin-valley locking suggests a coexistence of both spin and valley polarizations with nearly identical (or at least proportional) population imbalance at low Fermi energies which could be employed for magnetic detection of the valley polarization. It has been shown that spin-valley locking results in the protection of the spin polarizations against the relaxations in elastic scattering regime. In addition, the results indicate that the pseudo-spin current can be generated by the circularly polarized light which could be explained by asymmetric light absorption of the states in k-space.