“Piezoelectric manipulation and stacking-dependent magnetism in ferrovalley materials” (2026), by Jia Li et al. Materials Science research paper. Original abstract below, unchanged. A free PDF is available.

Piezoelectric manipulation and stacking-dependent magnetism in ferrovalley materials

Jia Li, Shiyao Zhang, Tong Wei et al. · November 3, 2026 · Materials Science

Abstract

Coupling piezoelectricity to Berry-curvature-driven transport provides a route for mechanically controlling valley and layer degrees of freedom. Here, using first-principles calculations, we propose a piezoelectric polarization-mediated anomalous valley Hall effect (PAVHE) in 2 H - and 1 T -LaHF monolayers and extend this mechanism to a piezoelectric polarization-mediated layer Hall effect (PLHE) in stacked 2 H -LaHF bilayers. In the monolayers, spontaneous valley polarization, finite Berry curvature, and symmetry-allowed in-plane piezoelectricity enable strain-driven valley-selective Hall transport. A uniaxial strain of 0.1% produces estimated effective in-plane fields of 2.66 × 10 6 and 1.67 × 10 7 V/m in 2 H - and 1 T -LaHF, respectively. In the bilayer, spin-Hamiltonian and interlayer-hopping analyses reveal that the stacking-dependent balance between ({J}_1⊥) and ({J}_2⊥) governs the selection of the interlayer FM and AFM ground states. Combined with the layer character of the valley states, the in-plane piezoelectric response of the transport-active layer enables mechanically driven PLHE. These results provide a design principle for coupling piezoelectricity with valley- and layer-dependent Hall transport in two-dimensional magnetic materials.

Free PDF DOI: 10.1038/s41524-026-02373-7