Bandwidth-Limited Critical Currents in Electrically Tunable Moire Bands

Abstract Moiré superlattices host narrow minibands whose bandwidth governs correlated and topological phases. Here, we demonstrate that the bandwidth also sets the critical current for the onset of out-of-equilibrium transport. In bilayer graphene aligned to hexagonal boron nitride, we explore the high-current transport regime as we continuously flatten the valence miniband using an out-of-plane displacement field. We observe a significant reduction in the critical current, which is captured by a minimal analytical model and corresponds to the calculated narrowing of the miniband. Moreover, by comparing distinct moiré platforms, we show that the scaling between critical current and bandwidth is a universal feature of graphene superlattices. Our results reveal a direct link between miniband dispersion and high-current transport, and establish this regime as a fast and accessible electrical probe of bandwidth evolution.

Authors

Institutions

Publication Details

Journal
Nano Letters
Published
2026-10-06
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.nanolett.6c02147
Primary Topic
Graphene research and applications
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
0.00

Funders

Controls
|||
ALL TIME
JAN
FEB
MAR
APR
MAY
JUN
JUL
AUG
SEP
OCT
article

Bandwidth-Limited Critical Currents in Electrically Tunable Moire Bands

Robin Smeyers, Sergey Slizovskiy, M. V. Miloševıć, Frank H. L. Koppens et al.
Nano Letters
Graphene research and applications
article

Bandwidth-Limited Critical Currents in Electrically Tunable Moire Bands

Robin Smeyers, Sergey Slizovskiy, M. V. Miloševıć, Frank H. L. Koppens, Riccardo Bertini, Hitesh Agarwal, Takashi Taniguchi, Krystian Nowakowski, Lucian Covaci, Chiara Pizzo, Xueqiao Wang, Pablo Jarillo‐Herrero, Roshan Krishna Kumar, Bert Jorissen, Zhiren Zheng, Julien Barrier, Álvaro Moreno, Kenji Watanabe, Vladimir I. Fal'ko
article en

Abstract

Abstract Moiré superlattices host narrow minibands whose bandwidth governs correlated and topological phases. Here, we demonstrate that the bandwidth also sets the critical current for the onset of out-of-equilibrium transport. In bilayer graphene aligned to hexagonal boron nitride, we explore the high-current transport regime as we continuously flatten the valence miniband using an out-of-plane displacement field. We observe a significant reduction in the critical current, which is captured by a minimal analytical model and corresponds to the calculated narrowing of the miniband. Moreover, by comparing distinct moiré platforms, we show that the scaling between critical current and bandwidth is a universal feature of graphene superlattices. Our results reveal a direct link between miniband dispersion and high-current transport, and establish this regime as a fast and accessible electrical probe of bandwidth evolution.

Nano Letters
Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats (ES), University of Antwerp (BE), National Institute for Materials Science (JP), University of Manchester (GB), Institut Català de Nanociència i Nanotecnologia (ES), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (US)
European Commission, Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, Core Research for Evolutional Science and Technology
Openalex Percentile: Top 60%
Graphene research and applications
DOIOpen Access PDFOpenAlex
AI Navigator

Ask Laika to Summarize, Analyze, and Connect papers live on the map.

Summarize Papers & Methodologies

Extract key findings, datasets, and comparative methods across publications.

Benchmark Rankings & Visual Analytics

Rank top research institutions, authors, funders, topics, and journals by Field-Weighted Citation Impact (FWCI) and paper volume with instant charts.

Connect Distant Disciplines

Bridge topological clusters on the map to find hidden collaborative intersections.