Tunable Valley Splitting due to Topological Orbital Magnetic Moment in Bilayer Graphene Quantum Point Contacts

In multivalley semiconductors, the valley degree of freedom can be potentially used to store, manipulate, and read quantum information, but its control remains challenging. The valleys in bilayer graphene can be addressed by a perpendicular magnetic field which couples by the valley g factor g_v. However, control over g_v has not been demonstrated yet. We experimentally determine the energy spectrum of a quantum point contact realized by a suitable gate geometry in bilayer graphene. Using finite bias spectroscopy, we measure the energy scales arising from the lateral confinement as well as the Zeeman splitting and find a spin g factor g_s∼2 . g_v can be tuned by a factor of 3 using vertical electric fields, g_v∼40 - 120 . The results are quantitatively explained by a calculation considering topological magnetic moment and its dependence on confinement and the vertical displacement field.