Full electric-field tuning of the nonreciprocal transport effect in massive chiral fermions with trigonal warping

In a noncentrosymmetric system, an intrinsic electric polarization is allowed and may lead to unusual nonreciprocal charge transport phenomena. As a result, a current-dependent resistance, arising from the magnetoelectric anisotropy term of k · E × B, appears and acts as a current rectifier with the amount of rectification being linearly proportional to the magnitude of both current and applied magnetic field. In this work, a different type of nonreciprocal transport effect was demonstrated in a graphene-based device, which requires no external magnetic field. Owing to the unique pseudospin (valley) degree of freedom in chiral fermions with trigonal warping, a large nonreciprocal transport effect was uncovered in a gapped bilayer graphene, where electric-field tunabilities of the band gap and valley polarization play an important role. The exact cancellation of nonreciprocal effect between two different valleys is effectively removed by breaking the inversion symmetry via electric gatings. The magnitude of the current rectification appears to be at a maximum when the Fermi surface undergoes a Lifshitz transition near the band edges, which is proportional to the current and the displacement field strength. The full electric-field tuning of the nonreciprocal transport effect without a magnetic field opens up a new direction for valleytronics in two-dimensional based devices.