Topological flat bands in a family of multilayer graphene moiré lattices
Moiré materials host a wealth of intertwined correlated and topological states of matter, all arising from flat electronic bands with nontrivial quantum geometry. A prominent example is the family of alternating-twist magic-angle graphene stacks, which exhibit symmetry-broken states at rational fillings of the moiré band and superconductivity close to half filling. Here, we introduce a second family of twisted graphene multilayers made up of twisted sheets of M- and N-layer Bernal-stacked graphene flakes. Calculations indicate that applying an electric displacement field isolates a flat and topological moiré conduction band that is primarily localized to a single graphene sheet below the moiré interface. Phenomenologically, the result is a striking similarity in the hierarchies of symmetry-broken phases across this family of twisted graphene multilayers. Our results show that this family of structures offers promising new opportunities for the discovery of exotic new correlated and topological phenomena, enabled by using the layer number to fine tune the flat moiré band and its screening environment.
Authors
- Ruiheng Su (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1135-0498)
- Anna Okounkova (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0001-8713-214X)
- Takashi Taniguchi (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1467-3105)
- Esmeralda Arreguin-Martinez (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4830-6968)
- Kenji Watanabe (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3701-8119)
- Minhao He (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4769-0438)
- Joshua Folk (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4455-5609)
- Dacen Waters (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3588-0039)
- Matthew Yankowitz (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5637-9203)
- Xiaodong Xu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3419-6158)
- Katherine Hinds
- Yahui Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0000-1841-375X)
- Ellis Thompson (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0002-8499-2360)
Institutions
- University of British Columbia Hospital (CA)
- University of British Columbia (CA)
- Johns Hopkins University (US)
- Princeton University (US)
- University of Washington (US)
- National Institute for Materials Science (JP)
- National Postdoctoral Association (US)
- University of Washington Applied Physics Laboratory (US)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Nature Communications
- Published
- 2024-12-04
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-55001-7
- Citations
- 11
- Primary Topic
- Graphene research and applications
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 1.29
Funders
- National Science Foundation
- U.S. Department of Energy
- M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust
- Canadian Institute for Advanced Research
- University of Washington
- Office of the Director of National Intelligence
- Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology
- Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education
- Clean Energy Institute
- Intelligence Community Postdoctoral Research Fellowship Program
- Materials Research Science and Engineering Center, Harvard University
- Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada
- Japan Society for the Promotion of Science
- Division of Materials Research