Photo-induced anomalous Nernst effects in transition metal dichalcogenides

Abstract

Monolayer transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs) such as MoS2, MoSe2, WS2 and WSe2 are quasi-two-dimensional semiconducting alternatives to graphene that have recently attracted much attention due to their remarkable electronic and optoelectronic properties [1–4]. The lack of inversion symmetry in TMDCs, in contrast to graphene, gives rise to nontrivial quantum phenomena [5,6] rooted in the topological nature of the Bloch electrons. In addition, valley-spin coupled physics [5] emerges in TMDCs from broken inversion symmetry and strong spin-orbit interaction, making TMDCs intriguing candidates for spintronic and valleytronic applications.