No Arabic abstract
Magic-angle twisted bilayer graphene (MATBG) is notable as a highly tunable platform for investigating strongly correlated phenomena such as high-$T_c$ superconductivity and quantum spin liquids, due to easy control of doping level through gating and sensitive dependence of the magic angle on hydrostatic pressure. Experimental observations of correlated insulating states, unconventional superconductivity and ferromagnetism in MATBG indicate that this system exhibits rich exotic phases. In this work, using density functional theory calculations in conjunction with the effective screening medium method, we find the MATBG under pressure at a twisting angle of $2.88unicode{xb0}$ and simulate how its electronic states evolve when doping level and out-of-plane electric field are gate-tuned. Our calculations show that, at doping levels between two electrons and four holes per moir{e} unit cell, a ferromagnetic solution with spin density localized at AA stacking sites is lower in energy than the nonmagnetic solution. The magnetic moment of this ferromagnetic state decreases with both electron and hole doping and vanishes at four electrons/holes doped per moir{e} unit cell. Hybridization between the flat bands at the Fermi level and the surrounding dispersive bands can take place at finite doping. Moreover, upon increasing the out-of-plane electric field at zero doping, a transition from the ferromagnetic state to the nonmagnetic one is seen. We also analyze the interlayer bonding character due to the flat bands via Wannier functions. Finally, we report trivial band topology of the flat bands in the ferromagnetic state at a certain doping level.
Strong electron correlation and spin-orbit coupling (SOC) provide two non-trivial threads to condensed matter physics. When these two strands of physics come together, a plethora of quantum phenomena with novel topological order have been predicted to emerge in the correlated SOC regime. In this work, we examine the combined influence of electron correlation and SOC on a 2-dimensional (2D) electronic system at the atomic interface between magic-angle twisted bilayer graphene (tBLG) and a tungsten diselenide (WSe) crystal. In such a structure, strong electron correlation within the moire flatband stabilizes correlated insulating states at both quarter and half-filling, whereas SOC transforms these Mott-like insulators into ferromagnets, evidenced by robust anomalous Hall effect with hysteretic switching behavior. The coupling between spin and valley degrees of freedom is unambiguously demonstrated as the magnetic order is shown to be tunable with an in-plane magnetic field, or a perpendicular electric field. In addition, we examine the influence of SOC on the isospin order and stability of superconductivity. Our findings establish an efficient experimental knob to engineer topological properties of moire bands in twisted bilayer graphene and related systems.
In the past two years, magic-angle twisted bilayer graphene has emerged as a uniquely versatile experimental platform that combines metallic, superconducting, magnetic and insulating phases in a single crystal. In particular the ability to tune the superconducting state with a gate voltage opened up intriguing prospects for novel device functionality. Here we present the first demonstration of a device based on the interplay between two distinct phases in adjustable regions of a single magic-angle twisted bilayer graphene crystal. We electrostatically define the superconducting and insulating regions of a Josephson junction and observe tunable DC and AC Josephson effects. We show that superconductivity is induced in different electronic bands and describe the junction behaviour in terms of these bands, taking in consideration interface effects as well. Shapiro steps, a hallmark of the AC Josephson effect and therefore the formation of a Josephson junction, are observed. This work is an initial step towards devices where separate gate-defined correlated states are connected in single-crystal nanostructures. We envision applications in superconducting electronics and quantum information technology as well as in studies exploring the nature of the superconducting state in magic-angle twisted bilayer graphene.
The interplay between interlayer van der Waals interaction and intralayer lattice distortion can lead to structural reconstruction in slightly twisted bilayer graphene (TBG) with the twist angle being smaller than a characteristic angle {theta}c. Experimentally, the {theta}c is demonstrated to be very close to the magic angle ({theta} ~ 1.05{deg}). In this work, we address the transition between reconstructed and unreconstructed structures of the TBG across the magic angle by using scanning tunnelling microscopy (STM). Our experiment demonstrates that both the two structures are stable in the TBG around the magic angle. By applying a STM tip pulse, we show that the two structures can be switched to each other and the bandwidth of the flat bands, which plays a vital role in the emergent strongly correlated states in the magic-angle TBG, can be tuned. The observed tunable lattice reconstruction and bandwidth of the flat bands provide an extra control knob to manipulate the exotic electronic states of the TBG near the magic angle.
Graphene, a one-layer honeycomb lattice of carbon atoms, exhibits unconventional phenomena and attracts much interest since its discovery. Recently, an unexpected Mott-like insulator state induced by moire pattern and a superconducting state are observed in magic-angle-twisted bilayer graphene, especially, without correlations between electrons, which gives more hints for the understanding and investigation of strongly correlated phenomena. The photon as boson, behaving differently with fermion, can also retrieve the unconventional phenomena of graphene, such as the bearded edge state which is even never been observed in graphene due to the unstability. Here, we present a direct observation of magic angle and wall state in twisted bilayer photonic graphene. We successfully observe the strong localization and rapid diffusion of photon at the regions with AA and AB stacking order around the magic angle, respectively. Most importantly, we find a wall state showing the photon distribution distinctly separate at the regions with AA and AB/BA stacking order in the lowest-energy band. The mechanism underlying the wall states may help to understand the existence of both Mott-like insulating state and superconducting state in magic-angle twisted bilayer graphene. The accessibility of magic angle in twisted bilayer photonic graphene adds the boson behavior into graphene superlattice and the observation of wall state will also deep the understanding of matter.
Twisting two layers into a magic angle (MA) of ~1.1{deg} is found essential to create low energy flat bands and the resulting correlated insulating, superconducting, and magnetic phases in twisted bilayer graphene (TBG). While most of previous works focus on revealing these emergent states in MA-TBG, a study of the twist angle dependence, which helps to map an evolution of these phases, is yet less explored. Here, we report a magneto-transport study on one non-magic angle TBG device, whose twist angle {theta} changes from 1.25{deg} at one end to 1.43{deg} at the other. For {theta}=1.25{deg}, we observe an emergence of topological insulating states at hole side with a sequence of Chern number |C|=4-|v|, where v is the number of electrons (holes) in moire unite cell. When {theta}>1.25{deg}, the Chern insulator from flat band disappears and evolves into fractal Hofstadter butterfly quantum Hall insulator where magnetic flux in one moire unite cell matters. Our observations will stimulate further theoretical and experimental investigations on the relationship between electron interactions and non-trivial band topology.