Robust propagating in-gap modes due to spin-orbit domain walls in graphene

Abstract

Recently, great experimental efforts towards designing topological electronic states have been invested in layered incommensurate heterostructures which form various nano- and meso-scale domains. In particular, it has become clear that a delicate interplay of different spin-orbit terms is induced in graphene on transition metal dichalcogenide substrates. We therefore theoretically study various types of domain walls in spin-orbit coupling in graphene looking for robust one-dimensional propagating electronic states. To do so, we use an interface Chern number and a spectral flow analysis in the low-energy theory and contrast our results to the standard arguments based on valley-Chern numbers or Chern numbers in continuum models. Surprisingly, we find that a sign-changing domain wall in valley-Zeeman spin-orbit coupling binds two robust Kramers pairs, within the bulk gap opened due to a simultaneous presence of Rashba coupling. We also study the robustness to symmetry breaking and lattice backscattering effects in tight-binding models. We show an explicit mapping of our valley-Zeeman domain wall to a domain wall in gated spinless bilayer graphene. We discuss the possible spectroscopic and transport signatures of various types of spin-orbit coupling domain walls in heterostructures.