Edge-Limited Valley-Preserved Transport in Quasi-1D Constriction of Bilayer Graphene

We investigated the quantization of the conductance of quasi-one-dimensional (quasi-1D) constrictions in high-mobility bilayer graphene (BLG) with different geometrical aspect ratios. Ultrashort (a few tens of nanometers long) constrictions were fabricated by applying an under-cut etching technique. Conductance was quantized in steps of ∼4 e²/ h (∼2 e²/ h) in devices with aspect ratios smaller (larger) than 1. We argue that scattering at the edges of a quasi-1D BLG constriction limits the intervalley scattering length, which causes valley-preserved (valley-broken) quantum transport in devices with aspect ratios smaller (larger) than 1. The subband energy levels, analyzed in terms of the bias-voltage and temperature dependences of the quantized conductance, indicated that they corresponded well to the effective channel width of a physically defined conducting channel with a hard-wall confining potential. Our study in ultrashort high-mobility BLG nano constrictions with physically tailored edges clearly confirms that physical edges are the major source of intervalley scattering in graphene in the ballistic limit.