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Probing and controlling the valley degree of freedom in graphene systems by transport measurements has been a major challenge to fully exploit the unique properties of this two-dimensional material. In this theoretical work, we show that this goal can be achieved by a quantum-wire geometry made of gapped graphene that acts as a valley filter with the following favorable features: (i) all electrical gate control, (ii) electrically switchable valley polarity, (iii) robustness against configuration fluctuation, and (iv) potential for room temperature operation. This valley filtering is accomplished by a combination of gap opening in either bilayer graphene with a vertical electrical field or single layer graphene on h-BN, valley splitting with a horizontal electric field, and intervalley mixing by defect scattering. In addition to functioning as a building block for valleytronics, the proposed configuration makes it possible to convert signals between electrical and valleytronic forms, thus allowing for the integration of electronic and valleytronic components for the realization of electro-valleytronics.

Pioneering studies in transition metal dichalcogenides have demonstrated convincingly the co-existence of multiple angular momentum degrees of freedom -of spin (1/2 sz = ±1/2), valley (τ = K, K' or ±1), and atomic orbital (lz = ±2) origins -in the valence band with strong interlocking among them, which results in noise-resilient pseudospin states ideal for spintronic type applications. With field modulation a powerful, universal means in physics studies and applications, this work develops, from bare models in the context of complicated band structure, a general effective theory of field-modulated spin-valley-orbital pseudospin physics that is able to describe both intra-and inter-valley dynamics. Based on the theory, it predicts and discusses the linear response of a pseudospin to external fields of arbitrary orientations. Paradigm field configurations are identified for pseudospin control including pseudospin flipping. For a nontrivial example, it presents a spin-valley-orbital quantum computing proposal, where the theory is applied to address all-electrical, simultaneous control of sz, τ, and lz for qubit manipulation. It demonstrates the viability of such control with static field effects and an additional dynamic electric field. An optimized qubit manipulation time ~ O(ns) is given.

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