Twistronics

Atomic scale moiré pattern created by overlapping two skewed sheets of graphene, a hexagonal lattice composed of carbon atoms.

Twistronics (from twist and electronics) is the study of how the angle (the twist) between layers of two-dimensional materials can change their electrical properties.[1][2] Materials such as bilayer graphene have been shown to have vastly different electronic behavior, ranging from non-conductive to superconductive, that depends sensitively on the angle between the layers.[3][4] The term was first introduced by the research group of Efthimios Kaxiras at Harvard University in their theoretical treatment of graphene superlattices.[1][5]

Pablo Jarillo-Herrero, Allan H. MacDonald and Rafi Bistritzer were awarded the 2020 Wolf Prize in Physics for their theoretical and experimental work on twisted bilayer graphene.[6]

  1. ^ a b Carr, Stephen; Massatt, Daniel; Fang, Shiang; Cazeaux, Paul; Luskin, Mitchell; Kaxiras, Efthimios (17 February 2017). "Twistronics: Manipulating the electronic properties of two-dimensional layered structures through their twist angle". Physical Review B. 95 (7): 075420. arXiv:1611.00649. Bibcode:2017PhRvB..95g5420C. doi:10.1103/PhysRevB.95.075420. S2CID 27148700.
  2. ^ Jarillo-Herrero, Pablo; Kaxiras, Efthimios; Taniguchi, Takashi; Watanabe, Kenji; Fang, Shiang; Fatemi, Valla; Cao, Yuan (2018-03-06). "Magic-angle graphene superlattices: a new platform for unconventional superconductivity". Nature. 556 (7699): 43–50. arXiv:1803.02342. Bibcode:2018Natur.556...43C. doi:10.1038/nature26160. PMID 29512651. S2CID 4655887.
  3. ^ Gibney, Elizabeth (2019-01-02). "How 'magic angle' graphene is stirring up physics". Nature. 565 (7737): 15–18. Bibcode:2019Natur.565...15G. doi:10.1038/d41586-018-07848-2. PMID 30602751.
  4. ^ Freedman, David H. (2019-04-30). "How Twisted Graphene Became the Big Thing in Physics". Quanta Magazine. Retrieved 2019-05-05.
  5. ^ Tritsaris, Georgios A.; Carr, Stephen; Zhu, Ziyan; Xie, Yiqi; Torrisi, Steven B.; Tang, Jing; Mattheakis, Marios; Larson, Daniel; Kaxiras, Efthimios (2020-01-30). "Electronic structure calculations of twisted multi-layer graphene superlattices". 2D Materials. 7 (3): 035028. arXiv:2001.11633. Bibcode:2020TDM.....7c5028T. doi:10.1088/2053-1583/ab8f62. S2CID 211004085.
  6. ^ "Allan MacDonald Wins Wolf Prize in Physics | College of Natural Sciences". cns.utexas.edu. Retrieved 2024-09-24.