graphene
119325808
Nature of the Correlated Insulator States in Twisted Bilayer Graphene.
We use self consistent Hartree Fock calculations performed in the full p band Hilbert space to assess the nature of the recently discovered correlated insulator states in magic angle twisted bilayer graphene (TBG) We find that gaps between the flat conduction and valence bands open at neutrality over a wide range of twist angles, sometimes without breaking the system's valley projected C_{2}T symmetry. Broken spin valley flavor symmetries then enable gapped states to form not only at neutrality, but also at total moire band filling n= p/4 with integer p=1, 2, 3, when the twist angle is close to the magic value at which the flat bands are most narrow. Because the magic angle flat band quasiparticles are isolated from remote band quasiparticles only for effective dielectric constants larger than ~20, the gapped states do not necessarily break C_{2}T symmetry and as a consequence the insulating states at n= 1/4 and n= 3/4 need not exhibit a quantized anomalous Hall effect.
Physical review letters
M D Xie Allan H MacDonald
118983101
Strange Metal in Magic Angle Graphene with near Planckian Dissipation.
Recent experiments on magic angle twisted bilayer graphene have discovered correlated insulating behavior and superconductivity at a fractional filling of an isolated narrow band. Here we show that magic angle bilayer graphene exhibits another hallmark of strongly correlated systems a broad regime of T linear resistivity above a small density dependent crossover temperature for a range of fillings near the correlated insulator. This behavior is reminiscent of similar behavior in other strongly correlated systems, often denoted "strange metals," such as cuprates, iron pnictides, ruthenates, and cobaltates, where the observations are at odds with expectations in a weakly interacting Fermi liquid. We also extract a transport "scattering rate," which satisfies a near Planckian form that is universally related to the ratio of (k_{B}T/ Our results establish magic angle bilayer graphene as a highly tunable platform to investigate strange metal behavior, which could shed light on this mysterious ubiquitous phase of correlated matter.
Physical review letters
Yuan Cao Debanjan Chowdhury Daniel Rodan-Legrain Oriol Rubies-Bigorda Kenji Watanabe Takashi Taniguchi T Senthil Pablo Jarillo-Herrero
9877716
Raman spectrum of graphene and graphene layers.
Graphene is the two dimensional building block for carbon allotropes of every other dimensionality. We show that its electronic structure is captured in its Raman spectrum that clearly evolves with the number of layers. The D peak second order changes in shape, width, and position for an increasing number of layers, reflecting the change in the electron bands via a double resonant Raman process. The G peak slightly down shifts. This allows unambiguous, high throughput, nondestructive identification of graphene layers, which is critically lacking in this emerging research area.
Physical review letters
Andrea C Ferrari J C Meyer Vittorio Scardaci Cinzia Casiraghi Michele Lazzeri Francesco Mauri Stefano Piscanec Da Jiang Kostya S Novoselov Stefan Roth Andre K Geim
119472535
Mechanism for Anomalous Hall Ferromagnetism in Twisted Bilayer Graphene.
Motivated by the recent observation of an anomalous Hall effect in twisted bilayer graphene, we use a lowest Landau level model to understand the origin of the underlying symmetry broken correlated state. This effective model is rooted in the occurrence of Chern bands which arise due to the coupling between the graphene device and its encapsulating substrate. Our model exhibits a phase transition from a spin valley polarized insulator to a partial or fully valley unpolarized metal as the bandwidth is increased relative to the interaction strength, consistent with experimental observations. In sharp contrast to standard quantum Hall ferromagnetism, the Chern number structure of the flat bands precludes an instability to an intervalley coherent phase, but allows for an excitonic vortex lattice at large interaction anisotropy.
Physical review letters
Nick Bultinck Shubhayu Chatterjee Michael P Zaletel
89620397
Origin of Magic Angles in Twisted Bilayer Graphene.
Twisted bilayer graphene (TBG) was recently shown to host superconductivity when tuned to special "magic angles" at which isolated and relatively flat bands appear. However, until now the origin of the magic angles and their irregular pattern have remained a mystery. Here we report on a fundamental continuum model for TBG which features not just the vanishing of the Fermi velocity, but also the perfect flattening of the entire lowest band. When parametrized in terms of a~1/th, the magic angles recur with a remarkable periodicity of Da3/2. We show analytically that the exactly flat band wave functions can be constructed from the doubly periodic functions composed of ratios of theta functions reminiscent of quantum Hall wave functions on the torus. We further report on the unusual robustness of the experimentally relevant first magic angle, address its properties analytically, and discuss how lattice relaxation effects help justify our model parameters.
Physical review letters
Grigory M Tarnopolsky A Kruchkov Ashvin Vishwanath
199668802
Collective Excitations of Quantum Anomalous Hall Ferromagnets in Twisted Bilayer Graphene.
We present a microscopic theory for collective excitations of quantum anomalous Hall ferromagnets (QAHF) in twisted bilayer graphene. We calculate the spin magnon and valley magnon spectra by solving Bethe Salpeter equations and verify the stability of QAHF. We extract the spin stiffness from the gapless spin wave dispersion and estimate the energy cost of a skyrmion antiskyrmion pair, which is found to be comparable in energy with the Hartree Fock gap. The valley wave mode is gapped, implying that the valley polarized state is more favorable compared to the valley coherent state. Using a nonlinear sigma model, we estimate the valley ordering temperature, which is considerably reduced from the mean field transition temperature due to thermal excitations of valley waves.
Physical review letters
Fengcheng Wu Sankar Das Sarma
174802619
Topology Bounded Superfluid Weight in Twisted Bilayer Graphene.
While regular flat bands are good for enhancing the density of states and hence the gap, they are detrimental to the superfluid weight. We show that the predicted nontrivial topology of the two lowest flat bands of twisted bilayer graphene (TBLG) plays an important role in the enhancement of the superfluid weight and hence of superconductivity. We derive the superfluid weight (phase stiffness) of the TBLG superconducting flat bands with a uniform pairing, and show that it can be expressed as an integral of the Fubini Study metric of the flat bands. This mirrors results already obtained for nonzero Chern number bands even though the TBLG flat bands have zero Chern number. We further show that the metric integral is lower bounded by the topological C_{2z}T Wilson loop winding number of TBLG flat bands, which renders that the superfluid weight is also bounded by this topological index. In contrast, trivial flat bands have a zero superfluid weight. The superfluid weight is crucial in determining the Berezinskii Kosterlitz Thouless transition temperature of the superconductor. Based on the transition temperature measured in TBLG experiments, we estimate the topological contribution of the superfluid weight in TBLG.
Physical review letters
Fang Xie Zhida Song Biao Lian Bogdan Andrei Bernevig
6080059
Quantum spin Hall effect in graphene.
We study the effects of spin orbit interactions on the low energy electronic structure of a single plane of graphene. We find that in an experimentally accessible low temperature regime the symmetry allowed spin orbit potential converts graphene from an ideal two dimensional semimetallic state to a quantum spin Hall insulator. This novel electronic state of matter is gapped in the bulk and supports the transport of spin and charge in gapless edge states that propagate at the sample boundaries. The edge states are nonchiral, but they are insensitive to disorder because their directionality is correlated with spin. The spin and charge conductances in these edge states are calculated and the effects of temperature, chemical potential, Rashba coupling, disorder, and symmetry breaking fields are discussed.
Physical review letters
C L Kane Eugene J Mele
6309177
Energy band gap engineering of graphene nanoribbons.
We investigate electronic transport in lithographically patterned graphene ribbon structures where the lateral confinement of charge carriers creates an energy gap near the charge neutrality point. Individual graphene layers are contacted with metal electrodes and patterned into ribbons of varying widths and different crystallographic orientations. The temperature dependent conductance measurements show larger energy gaps opening for narrower ribbons. The sizes of these energy gaps are investigated by measuring the conductance in the nonlinear response regime at low temperatures. We find that the energy gap scales inversely with the ribbon width, thus demonstrating the ability to engineer the band gap of graphene nanostructures by lithographic processes.
Physical review letters
Melinda Y Han Barbaros Ozyilmaz Yuanbo Zhang Philip Kim
216562680
Uncovering the Triplet Ground State of Triangular Graphene Nanoflakes Engineered with Atomic Precision on a Metal Surface.
Graphene can develop large magnetic moments in custom crafted open shell nanostructures such as triangulene, a triangular piece of graphene with zigzag edges. Current methods of engineering graphene nanosystems on surfaces succeeded in producing atomically precise open shell structures, but demonstration of their net spin remains elusive to date. Here, we fabricate triangulenelike graphene systems and demonstrate that they possess a spin S=1 ground state. Scanning tunneling spectroscopy identifies the fingerprint of an underscreened S=1 Kondo state on these flakes at low temperatures, signaling the dominant ferromagnetic interactions between two spins. Combined with simulations based on the meanfield Hubbard model, we show that this S=1 p paramagnetism is robust and can be turned into an S=1/2 state by additional H atoms attached to the radical sites. Our results demonstrate that p paramagnetism of high spin graphene flakes can survive on surfaces, opening the door to study the quantum behavior of interacting p spins in graphene systems.
Physical review letters
Jingcheng Li Sofia Sanz Jes'us Castro-Esteban Manuel Vilas-Varela Niklas Friedrich Thomas Frederiksen Diego Pena Jose Ignacio Pascual