Layer Coherence Origin of Intrinsic Planar Hall Effect in 2D Limit

The intrinsic planar Hall effect has attracted intensive interest inspired by recent experiments. Existing theories of this effect require three dimensional orbital motion, or strong spin-orbit coupling of certain forms, which do not exist in van der Waals thin films. Here, we uncover a new origin of the planar Hall effect - as an intrinsic property of layer coherent electrons - that allows its presence even in bilayer and trilayer atomically thin limit. As examples, we show that the effect can be triggered by strain and interlayer sliding respectively in twisted bilayer graphene and trilayer transition metal dichalcogenides, where the effect features rich tunability and even stronger magnitude than those induced by topological nodal structures in bulk materials. The layer mechanism also provides a new route towards quantized Hall response upon a topological phase transition induced by in-plane magnetic field. These results unveil the unexplored potential of quantum layertronics and moiré flat band for planar Hall transport.