Wide Electrical Tunability of the Valley Splitting in a Doubly Gated Silicon-on-Insulator Quantum Well.

Aubergier, Nathan; Renard, Vincent T; Barraud, Sylvain; Takashina, Kei; Piot, Benjamin A · Nano Lett · 2025

basic_science · Level V

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Abstract

The valley splitting of 2D electrons in doubly gated silicon-on-insulator quantum wells is studied by low temperature transport measurements under magnetic fields. At the buried thermal-oxide SiO<sub>2</sub> interface, the valley splitting increases as a function of the electrostatic bias <i>δn</i> = <i>n</i><sub><i>B</i></sub> - <i>n</i><sub><i>F</i></sub> (where <i>n</i><sub><i>B</i></sub> and <i>n</i><sub><i>F</i></sub> are electron densities contributed by back and front gates, respectively) and reaches values as high as 6.3 meV, independent of the total carrier concentration of the channel. We show that <i>δn</i> tunes the square of the wave function modulus at the interface and its penetration into the barrier, both of which are key quantities in a theory describing interface-induced valley splitting, and is therefore the natural experimental parameter to manipulate valleys in 2D silicon systems. At the front interface, made of a thin "high-k" dielectric, a smaller valley splitting is observed, adding further options to tune the valley splitting within a single device.