We construct a minimal theory describing the optical activity of a thin sheet of a twisted material, the simplest example of which is twisted bilayer graphene. We introduce the notion of "twisted electrical conductivity", which parametrizes the parity-odd response of a thin film to a perpendicularly falling electromagnetic waves with wavelength larger than the thickness of the sheet. We show that the low-frequency Faraday rotation angle has different behaviors in different phases. For an insulator, the Faraday angle behaves as $ω^2$ at low frequencies, with the coefficient being determined by the linear relationship between a component of the electric quadrupole moment and the external electric field. For superconductors, the Faraday rotation angle is constant when the frequency of the incoming EM waves is below the superconducting gap and is determined by the coefficient of the Lifshitz invariant in the Ginzburg-Landau functional describing the superconducting state. In the metallic state, we show that the twisted conductivity is proportional to the "magnetic helicity" (scalar product of the velocity and the magnetic moment) of the quasiparticle, averaged around the Fermi surface. The theory is general and is applicable to strongly correlated phases.
The experimental control over the twist angle in twisted bilayer graphene has not been reported and its realistic structure is most likely incommensurate. In this paper, we develop a tight-binding virtual crystal approximation theory to study the electronic properties in incommensurate twisted bilayer graphene. The theory yields the electronic band structure and the local density of states for any incommensurate twist angle θ between the graphene sheets. Angle dependent Van Hove singularities are observed in the numerically calculated local density of states. In accord with observations in sca…
We derive a simple formula for the real-space chirality of twisted bilayer graphene that can be related to the cross-product of its sheet currents. This quantity shows well-defined plateaus for the first remote band as function of the gate voltage which are approximately quantized for commensurate twist angles. The zeroth plateau corresponds to the first magic angle where a sign change occurs due to an emergent $C_6$-symmetry. Our observation offers a new definition of the magic angle based on a macroscopic observable which is accessible in typical transport experiments.
Tunneling characteristics of twisted double bilayer graphene heterostructures
Institute for Spectroscopy, Russian Academy of Sciences（俄罗斯科学院光谱学研究所）；National Research University Higher School of Economics（高等经济国立研究大学）；Institute of Microelectronics Technology and High Purity Materials, Russian Academy of Sciences（俄罗斯科学院微电子技术与高纯材料研究所）；Programmable Functional Materials Lab, Center for Neurophysics and Neuromorphic Technologies（神经物理与类脑技术中心可编程功能材料实验室）；Moscow Center for Advanced Studies（莫斯科高级研究中心）；Department of Materials Science and Engineering, National University of Singapore（新加坡国立大学材料科学与工程系）；Institute for Functional Intelligent Materials, National University of Singapore（新加坡国立大学功能智能材料研究所）
Active control of heat flow is of both fundamental and applied interest in thermal management and energy conversion. Here, we present a fluctuational electrodynamic study of thermal radiation between twisted bilayer graphene (TBLG), motivated by its unusual and highly tunable plasmonic properties. We show that near-field heat flow can vary by more than 10-fold over only a few degrees of twist, and identify special angles leading to heat flow extrema. These special angles are dictated by the Drude weight in the intraband optical conductivity of TBLG, and are roughly linear with the chemical pot…
Recent studies show that two low-energy Van Hove singularities (VHSs) seen as two pronounced peaks in the density of states (DOS) could be induced in twisted graphene bilayer. Here, we report angle dependent VHSs of slightly twisted graphene bilayer studied by scanning tunneling microscopy and spectroscopy. We show that energy difference of the two VHSs follows \DeltaEvhs ~ \hbarνF\DeltaK between 1.0^{\circ} and 3.0^{\circ} (here νF ~ 1.1\times106 m/s is the Fermi velocity of monolayer graphene, \DeltaK = 2Ksin(θ/2) is the shift between the corresponding Dirac points of the twisted graphene bi…
In a groundbreaking experimental advance it was recently shown that by stacking two sheets of graphene atop of each other at a twist angle close to one of the so called "magic angles", an effective two-dimensional correlated system emerges. In this system the kinetic energy of the low-energy electrons is much reduced and consequently interactions become very relevant, providing a new platform into the physics of two-dimensional correlated materials. Evidence of a proposed Mott insulating as well as superconducting state in these highly tunable systems has spurred much attention as they could p…
The recent discovery of correlated insulator states and superconductivity in magic-angle twisted bilayer graphene has paved the way to the experimental investigation of electronic correlations in tunable flat band systems realized in twisted van der Waals heterostructures. This novel twist angle degree of freedom and control should be generalizable to other 2D systems, which may exhibit similar correlated physics behavior while at the same time enabling new techniques to tune and control the strength of electron-electron interactions. Here, we report on a new highly tunable correlated system b…
We study the low-energy electronic structure of heterostructures formed by one sheet of graphene placed on a monolayer of ${\rm NbSe_2}$. We build a continuous low-energy effective model that takes into account the presence of a twist angle between graphene and ${\rm NbSe_2}$, and of spin-orbit coupling and superconducting pairing in ${\rm NbSe_2}$. We obtain the parameters entering the continuous model via ab-initio calculations. We show that despite the large mismatch between the graphene's and ${\rm NbSe_2}$'s lattice constants, due to the large size of the ${\rm NbSe_2}$'s Fermi pockets, t…
Magic-angle twisted bilayer graphene (TBG), with rotational misalignment close to 1.1$^\circ$, features isolated flat electronic bands that host a rich phase diagram of correlated insulating, superconducting, ferromagnetic, and topological phases. The origins of the correlated insulators and superconductivity, and the interplay between them, are particularly elusive. Both states have been previously observed only for angles within $\pm0.1^\circ$ from the magic-angle value and occur in adjacent or overlapping electron density ranges; nevertheless, it is still unclear how the two states are rela…
We present an approach to describing fluctuational electrodynamic (FED) interactions, particularly van der Waals (vdW) interactions as well as radiative heat transfer (RHT), between material bodies of vastly different length scales, allowing for going between atomistic and continuum treatments of the response of each of these bodies as desired. Any local continuum description of electromagnetic (EM) response is compatible with our approach, while atomistic descriptions in our approach are based on effective electronic and nuclear oscillator degrees of freedom, encapsulating dissipation, short-…
