No Arabic abstract
When hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) and graphene are aligned at zero or small twist angle, a moire structure is formed due to the small lattice constant mismatch between the two structures. In this work, we analyze magnetic ordering tendencies, driven by onsite Coulomb interactions, of encapsulated bilayer graphene (BG) forming a moire structure with one (hBN-BG) or both hBN layers (hBN-BG-hBN), using the random phase approximation. The calculations are performed in a fully atomistic Hubbard model that takes into account all $pi$-electrons of the carbon atoms in one moire unit cell. We analyze the charge neutral case and find that the dominant magnetic ordering instability is uniformly antiferromagnetic. Furthermore, at low temperatures, the critical Hubbard interaction $U_c$ required to induce magnetic order is slightly larger in those systems where the moire structure has caused a band gap opening in the non-interacting picture, although the difference is less than 6%. Mean-field calculations are employed to estimate how such an interaction-induced magnetic order may change the observable single-particle gap sizes.
Moire superlattices (MSL) formed in angle-aligned bilayers of van der Waals materials have become a promising platform to realize novel two-dimensional electronic states. Angle-aligned trilayer structures can form two sets of MSLs which could potentially interfere with each other. In this work, we directly image the moire patterns in both monolayer graphene aligned on hBN and twisted bilayer graphene aligned on hBN, using combined scanning microwave impedance microscopy and conductive atomic force microscopy. Correlation of the two techniques reveals the contrast mechanism for the achieved ultrahigh spatial resolution (<2 nm). We observe two sets of MSLs with different periodicities in the trilayer stack. The smaller MSL breaks the 6-fold rotational symmetry and exhibits abrupt discontinuities at the boundaries of the larger MSL. Using a rigid atomic-stacking model, we demonstrate that the hBN layer considerably modifies the MSL of twisted bilayer graphene. We further analyze its effect on the reciprocal space spectrum of the dual-moire system.
The effect of an hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) layer close aligned with twisted bilayer graphene (TBG) is studied. At sufficiently low angles between twisted bilayer graphene and hBN, $theta_{hBN} lesssim 2^circ$, the graphene electronic structure is strongly disturbed. The width of the low energy peak in the density of states changes from $W sim 5 - 10$ meV for a decoupled system to $sim 20 - 30$ meV. Spikes in the density of states due to van Hove singularities are smoothed out. We find that for a realistic combination of the twist angle in the TBG and the twist angle between the hBN and the graphene layer the system can be described using a single moire unit cell.
Van der Waals heterostructures employing graphene and hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) crystals have emerged as a promising platform for plasmonics thanks to the tunability of their collective modes with carrier density and record values for plasmonics figures of merit. In this Article we investigate theoretically the role of moire-pattern superlattices in nearly aligned graphene on hBN by using continuum-model Hamiltonians derived from ab initio calculations. We calculate the systems energy loss function for a variety of chemical potential values that are accessible in gated devices. Our calculations reveal that the electron-hole asymmetry of the moire bands leads to a remarkable asymmetry of the plasmon dispersion between positive and negative chemical potentials, showcasing the intricate band structure and rich absorption spectrum across the secondary Dirac point gap for the hole bands.
The Coulomb interaction is widely known to enhance the effective mass of interacting particles and therefore tends to favor a localized state at commensurate filling. Here, we will show that, in contrast to this consensus, in a van der Waals heterostructure consisting of graphene and hexagon boron nitride (h-BN), the onsite Coulomb repulsion will at first destroy the localized state. This is due to the fact that the onsite Coulomb repulsion tends to suppress the asymmetry between neighboring carbons induced by h-BN substrate. We corroborate this surprising phenomenon by solving a tight-binding model with onsite Coulomb repulsion treated within coherent potential approximation, where hopping parameters are derived from density functional theory calculations based on the graphene/h-BN heterostructure. Our results indicate that both gapless and gapped states observed experimentally in graphene/h-BN heterostructures can be understood after a realistic value of the onsite Coulomb repulsion as well as different interlayer distances are taken into account. Finally, we propose ways to enhance the gapped state which is essential for potential application of graphene to next-generation electronics. Furthermore, we argue that band gap suppressed by many-body effect should happen in other van der Waals heterostructures.
Interference of double moire patterns of graphene (G) encapsulated by hexagonal boron nitride (BN) can alter the electronic structure features near the primary/secondary Dirac points and the electron-hole symmetry introduced by a single G/BN moire pattern depending on the relative stacking arrangements of the top/bottom BN layers. We show that strong interference effects are found in nearly aligned BN/G/BN and BN/G/NB and obtain the evolution of the associated density of states as a function of moire superlattice twist angles. For equal moire periods and commensurate patterns with $Delta phi = 0^{circ}$ modulo $60^{circ}$ angle differences the patterns can add up constructively leading to large pseudogaps of about $sim 0.5$ eV on the hole side or cancel out destructively depending on their relative sliding, e.g. partially recovering electron-hole symmetry. The electronic structure of moire quasicrystals for $Delta phi =30^{circ}$ differences reveal double moire features in the density of states with almost isolated van Hove singularities where we can expect strong correlations.