Spin-dependent refraction at the interface of lateral heterostructures of 2$H$-type transition-metal dichalcogenide monolayers

Abstract

We study the refraction effect of electronic wave in hole-doped lateral heterojunctions of metallic and semiconducting transition-metal dichalcogenide monolayers. This effect is theoretically investigated in 2$H$-type MoSe$_2$-NbS$_2$ and WSe$_2$-NbS$_2$ junctions by combining the first-principles calculation and the lattice Green's function method. We show that the electronic waves change the direction of motion at the interface and collimate the velocity along two different directions depending on the spin. We find that the transmission probability increases with the charge density and that the direction of refracted electron beams is close to $\pm30^\circ$ with respect to the perpendicular axis to the interface. The metallic transition-metal dichalcogenide is essential for the refraction effect because of the strong trigonal-warping effect, the large Fermi surface, and the Zeeman-type spin-orbit coupling. The refraction effect enables to generate the spin-polarized electronic current by using a simple fabrication of transition-metal dichalcogenide monolayers.