English

Light-Wave Engineering for Selective Polarization of a Single $\mathbf{Q}$ Valley in Transition Metal Dichalcogenides

Strongly Correlated Electrons 2026-05-05 v5 Materials Science Optics

Abstract

The selective control of specific momentum valleys lies at the core of valleytronics, a field that has thus far focused primarily on the K\mathbf{K} and K\mathbf{K'} valleys in transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs). However, direct optical access to other low-lying yet conventionally inaccessible valleys such as the sixfold degenerate Q\mathbf{Q} valleys has remained an outstanding challenge, fundamentally limiting the exploitation of the full valley degree of freedom for information processing. Here, we theoretically introduce an emergent light-wave valley selection rule that enables deterministic and high fidelity excitation of any single Q\mathbf{Q} valley in monolayer TMDs. By coherently combining a circularly polarized pump pulse with a linearly polarized driver pulse, we engineer distinct quantum pathways that unambiguously excited electrons into a targeted Q\mathbf{Q} valley, completely decoupled from the conventional K/K\mathbf{K}/\mathbf{K'} valleys. This all-optical scheme achieves near-unity (\sim100\%) valley polarization across an exceptionally broad ultrafast window, from the terahertz (101210^{12}~Hz) to petahertz (101510^{15}~Hz) regimes, enabling single Q\mathbf{Q} valley polarization on femtosecond timescales. Our findings establish a new paradigm of light-wave quantum metrology in valleytronics, unlocking the Q\mathbf{Q}-valley subspace for scalable multi-state valley information processing.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2508.07213,
  title  = {Light-Wave Engineering for Selective Polarization of a Single $\mathbf{Q}$ Valley in Transition Metal Dichalcogenides},
  author = {Youngjae Kim},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2508.07213},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

We request withdrawal of [v4] only, while keeping [v3] accessible. The [v4] introduced a section on excitonic effects that contains a theoretical issue in the interpretation of the excitonic contribution. This issue requires further clarification, and the current version may mislead readers regarding the role of excitonic effects. Therefore, we request withdrawal of [v4]