Magnetic control of the valley degree of freedom of massive Dirac fermions with application to transition metal dichalcogenides

Abstract

We study the valley-dependent magnetic and transport properties of massive Dirac fermions in multivalley systems such as transition metal dichalcogenides. The asymmetry of the zeroth Landau level between valleys and the enhanced magnetic susceptibility can be attributed to the different orbital magnetic moment tied with each valley. This allows the valley polarization to be controlled by tuning the external magnetic field and the doping level. As a result of this magnetic-field-induced valley polarization, there exists an extra contribution to the ordinary Hall effect. All these effects can be captured by a low-energy effective theory with a valley-orbit coupling term.