Breakdown of semiclassical description of thermoelectricity in near-magic angle twisted bilayer graphene

Low-Frequency Resistance Noise in Near-Magic-Angle Twisted Bilayer Graphene

The low-frequency resistance fluctuations, or noise, in electrical resistance not only set a performance benchmark in devices but also form a sensitive tool to probe nontrivial electronic phases and band structures in solids. Here, we report the measurement of such noise in the electrical resistance in twisted bilayer graphene (tBLG), where the layers are misoriented close to the magic angle (θ ∼ 1°). At high temperatures (T ≳ 60-70 K), the power spectral density (PSD) of the fluctuation inside the low-energy moiré bands is predominantly ∝1/f, where f is the frequency, being generally lowest close to the magic angle, and can be well-explained within the conventional McWhorter model of the '1/f noise' with trap-assisted density-mobility fluctuations. At low T (≲10 K), the measured noise exhibits a strong two-level random telegraphic signal (RTS), especially close to the moiré gap, which exhibits a ∝1/f2-like PSD that can be attributed to poorly screened resonances of the Fermi energy to specific bands of defects in the encapsulating boron nitride (hBN) layers. The low-T noise within the moiré band exhibits a series of minima at the integral as well as half-integral fillings, which align with the frequently observed van Hove singularities in the density-of-states driven by strong Coulomb interaction. Apart from providing a comprehensive account of the origin and the magnitude of noise in tBLG, our experiment also reveals noise to be significantly more sensitive to the underlying interaction effects in tBLG than the conventional time-averaged transport.

Electronic confinement induced quantum dot behavior in magic-angle twisted bilayer graphene

Magic-angle twisted bilayer graphene (TBLG) has emerged as a versatile platform to explore correlated electron phases driven primarily by low-energy flat bands in moiré superlattices. While techniques for controlling the twist angle between graphene layers have spurred rapid experimental progress, understanding the effects of doping inhomogeneity on electronic transport in correlated electron systems remains challenging. In this work, we investigate the interplay of confinement and doping inhomogeneity on the electrical transport properties of TBLG by leveraging device dimensions and twist angles. We show that reducing device dimensions can magnify disorder potentials caused by doping inhomogeneity, resulting in pronounced carrier confinement. This phenomenon is evident in charge transport measurements, where the Coulomb blockade effect is observed. Temperature-dependent measurements reveal a large variation in the activation gap across the device. These findings highlight the critical role of doping inhomogeneity in TBLG and its significant impact on the transport properties of the system.

Emergent phases in graphene flat bands

Electronic correlations in two-dimensional materials play a crucial role in stabilising emergent phases of matter. The realisation of correlation-driven phenomena in graphene has remained a longstanding goal, primarily due to the absence of strong electron-electron interactions within its low-energy bands. In this context, magic-angle twisted bilayer graphene has recently emerged as a novel platform featuring correlated phases favoured by the low-energy flat bands of the underlying moiré superlattice. Notably, the observation of correlated insulators and superconductivity, and the interplay between these phases have garnered significant attention. A wealth of correlated phases with unprecedented tunability was discovered subsequently, including orbital ferromagnetism, Chern insulators, strange metallicity, density waves, and nematicity. However, a comprehensive understanding of these closely competing phases remains elusive. The ability to controllably twist and stack multiple graphene layers has enabled the creation of a whole new family of moiré superlattices with myriad properties. Here, we review the progress and development achieved so far, encompassing the rich phase diagrams offered by these graphene-based moiré systems. Additionally, we discuss multiple phases recently observed in non-moiré multilayer graphene systems. Finally, we outline future opportunities and challenges for the exploration of hidden phases in this new generation of moiré materials.

Nonlinear Electrical Transport Unveils Fermi Surface Malleability in a Moiré Heterostructure

Van Hove singularities enhance many-body interactions and induce collective states of matter ranging from superconductivity to magnetism. In magic-angle twisted bilayer graphene, van Hove singularities appear at low energies and are malleable with density, leading to a sequence of Lifshitz transitions and resets observable in Hall measurements. However, without a magnetic field, linear transport measurements have limited sensitivity to the band's topology. Here, we utilize nonlinear longitudinal and transverse transport measurements to probe these unique features in twisted bilayer graphene at zero magnetic field. We demonstrate that the nonlinear responses, induced by the Berry curvature dipole and extrinsic scattering processes, intricately map the Fermi surface reconstructions at various fillings. Importantly, our experiments highlight the intrinsic connection of these features with the moiré bands. Beyond corroborating the insights from linear Hall measurements, our findings establish nonlinear transport as a pivotal tool for probing band topology and correlated phenomena.

High-Mobility Compensated Semimetals, Orbital Magnetization, and Umklapp Scattering in Bilayer Graphene Moiré Superlattices

Twist-controlled moiré superlattices (MSs) have emerged as a versatile platform for realizing artificial systems with complex electronic spectra. The combination of Bernal-stacked bilayer graphene (BLG) and hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) can give rise to an interesting MS, which has recently featured a set of unexpected behaviors, such as unconventional ferroelectricity and the electronic ratchet effect. Yet, the understanding of the electronic properties of BLG/hBN MS has, at present, remained fairly limited. Here, we combine magneto-transport and low-energy sub-THz excitation to gain insights into the properties of this MS. We demonstrate that the alignment between BLG and hBN crystal lattices results in the emergence of compensated semimetals at some integer fillings of the moiré bands, separated by van Hove singularities where the Lifshitz transition occurs. A particularly pronounced semimetal develops when eight holes reside in the moiré unit cell, where coexisting high-mobility electron and hole systems feature strong magnetoresistance reaching 2350% already at B = 0.25 T. Next, by measuring the THz-driven Nernst effect in remote bands, we observe valley splitting, indicating an orbital magnetization characterized by a strongly enhanced effective gv-factor of 340. Finally, using THz photoresistance measurements, we show that the high-temperature conductivity of the BLG/hBN MS is limited by electron-electron umklapp processes. Our multifaceted analysis introduces THz-driven magnetotransport as a convenient tool to probe the band structure and interaction effects in van der Waals materials and provides a comprehensive understanding of the BLG/hBN MS.

A twist for tunable electronic and thermal transport properties of nanodevices

Twisted graphene-layered materials with nonzero interlayer twist angles (θ) have recently become appealing, as they exhibit a range of attractive physical properties, which include a Mott insulating phase and superconductivity. In this study, we consider nanodevices constructed from zigzag graphene nanoribbons with a top rectangular benzenoid [6,3]-flake. Using density functional theory and a non-equilibrium Green's function approach, we explore how the electronic and thermal transport properties in such nanodevices can be tuned through a twist of the top flake by an angle 0° ≤ θ ≤ 8.8° for different stacking configurations. We found a strong dependency of the electronic structure on the stacking type, as well as on the twisting regime, specifically in AA-stacking devices. Electron and hole van Hove singularities (vHSs), which originate, respectively, from the flatness of the top of the valence band for the minor-spin component and the bottom of the conduction band for the major-spin component, are found very close to the Fermi level in the density of states and electronic transmission spectra of AA-stacking devices with a twist angle of 1.1°. We establish that these vHSs in AA-1.1° devices are stable at higher temperatures and, with the increased number of available states, lead to larger values of electron thermal conductivity and finally total thermal conductivity in AA-1.1°. Our work highlights the essential role of twisting and stacking for the fabrication of nanoscale charge and heat switches and spurs future studies of twisted layered structures.

Demonstration and imaging of cryogenic magneto-thermoelectric cooling in a van der Waals semimetal

Attaining viable thermoelectric cooling at cryogenic temperatures is of considerable fundamental and technological interest for electronics and quantum materials applications. In-device temperature control can provide more efficient and precise thermal environment management compared with conventional global cooling. The application of a current and perpendicular magnetic field gives rise to cooling by generating electron-hole pairs on one side of the sample and to heating due to their recombination on the opposite side, which is known as the Ettingshausen effect. Here we develop nanoscale cryogenic imaging of the magneto-thermoelectric effect and demonstrate absolute cooling and an Ettingshausen effect in exfoliated WTe2 Weyl semimetal flakes at liquid He temperatures. In contrast to bulk materials, the cooling is non-monotonic with respect to the magnetic field and device size. Our model of magneto-thermoelectricity in mesoscopic semimetal devices shows that the cooling efficiency and the induced temperature profiles are governed by the interplay between sample geometry, electron-hole recombination length, magnetic field, and flake and substrate heat conductivities. The observations open the way for the direct integration of microscopic thermoelectric cooling and for temperature landscape engineering in van der Waals devices.

Band structure sensitive photoresponse in twisted bilayer graphene proximitized with WSe2

The ability to tune the twist angle between different layers of two-dimensional (2D) materials has enabled the creation of electronic flat bands artificially, leading to exotic quantum phases. When a twisted blilayer of graphene (tBLG) is placed at the van der Waals proximity to a semiconducting layer of transition metal dichalcogenide (TMDC), such as WSe2, the emergent phases in the tBLG can fundamentally modify the functionality of such heterostructures. Here we have performed photoresponse measurements in few-layer-WSe2/tBLG heterostructure, where the mis-orientation angle of the tBLG layer was chosen to lie close to the magic angle of 1.1°. Our experiments show that the photoresponse is extremely sensitive to the band structure of tBLG and gets strongly suppressed when the Fermi energy was placed within the low-energy moiré bands. Photoresponse could however be recovered when Fermi energy exceeded the moiré band edge where it was dominated by the photogating effect due to transfer of charge between the tBLG and the WSe2 layers. Our observations suggest the possibility of the screening effects from moiré flat bands that strongly affect the charge transfer process at the WSe2/tBLG interface, which is further supported by time-resolved photo-resistance measurements.

Spin-orbit coupling-enhanced valley ordering of malleable bands in twisted bilayer graphene on WSe2

Recent experiments in magic-angle twisted bilayer graphene have revealed a wealth of novel electronic phases as a result of interaction-driven spin-valley flavour polarisation. In this work, we investigate correlated phases due to the combined effect of spin-orbit coupling-enhanced valley polarisation and the large density of states below half filling of the moiré band in twisted bilayer graphene coupled to tungsten diselenide. We observe an anomalous Hall effect, accompanied by a series of Lifshitz transitions that are highly tunable with carrier density and magnetic field. The magnetisation shows an abrupt change of sign near half-filling, confirming its orbital nature. While the Hall resistance is not quantised at zero magnetic fields-indicating a ground state with partial valley polarisation-perfect quantisation and complete valley polarisation are observed at finite fields. Our results illustrate that singularities in the flat bands in the presence of spin-orbit coupling can stabilise ordered phases even at non-integer moiré band fillings.

A primer on twistronics: a massless Dirac fermion's journey to moiré patterns and flat bands in twisted bilayer graphene

The recent discovery of superconductivity in magic-angle twisted bilayer graphene (TBLG) has sparked a renewed interest in the strongly-correlated physics ofsp²carbons, in stark contrast to preliminary investigations which were dominated by the one-body physics of the massless Dirac fermions. We thus provide a self-contained, theoretical perspective of the journey of graphene from its single-particle physics-dominated regime to the strongly-correlated physics of the flat bands. Beginning from the origin of the Dirac points in condensed matter systems, we discuss the effect of the superlattice on the Fermi velocity and Van Hove singularities in graphene and how it leads naturally to investigations of the moiré pattern in van der Waals heterostructures exemplified by graphene-hexagonal boron-nitride and TBLG. Subsequently, we illuminate the origin of flat bands in TBLG at the magic angles by elaborating on a broad range of prominent theoretical works in a pedagogical way while linking them to available experimental support, where appropriate. We conclude by providing a list of topics in the study of the electronic properties of TBLG not covered by this review but may readily be approached with the help of this primer.

Quantum Hall Interferometry in Triangular Domains of Marginally Twisted Bilayer Graphene

Quantum Hall (QH) interferometry provides an archetypal platform for the experimental realization of braiding statistics of fractional QH states. However, the complexity of observing fractional statistics requires phase coherence over the length of the interferometer, as well as suppression of Coulomb charging energy. Here, we demonstrate a new type of QH interferometer based on marginally twisted bilayer graphene (mtBLG), with a twist angle θ ≈ 0.16°. With the device operating in the QH regime, we observe distinct signatures of electronic Fabry-Pérot and Aharonov-Bohm oscillations of the magneto-thermopower in the density-magnetic field phase space, at Landau level filling factors ν = 4, 8. We find that QH interference effects are intrinsic to the triangular AB/BA domains in mtBLG that show diminished Coulomb charging effects. Our results demonstrate phase-coherent interference of QH edge modes without any additional gate-defined complex architecture, which may be beneficial in experimental realizations of non-Abelian braiding statistics.