Litcius/Paper detail

Magic-angle helical trilayer graphene

Trithep Devakul, Patrick J. Ledwith, Li-Qiao Xia, Aviram Uri, Sergio C. de la Barrera, Pablo Jarillo‐Herrero, Liang Fu

2023Science Advances81 citationsDOIOpen Access PDF

Abstract

We propose magic-angle helical trilayer graphene (HTG), a helical structure featuring identical rotation angles between three consecutive layers of graphene, as a unique and experimentally accessible platform for realizing exotic correlated topological states of matter. While nominally forming a supermoiré (or moiré-of-moiré) structure, we show that HTG locally relaxes into large regions of a periodic single-moiré structure realizing flat topological bands carrying nontrivial valley Chern number. These bands feature near-ideal quantum geometry and are isolated from remote bands by a very large energy gap, making HTG a promising platform for experimental realization of correlated topological states such as integer and fractional quantum anomalous Hall states.

Topics & Concepts

GraphenePhysicsQuantum Hall effectTopology (electrical circuits)Condensed matter physicsMoiré patternBand gapChirality (physics)Rotation (mathematics)QuantumGeometryMaterials scienceOpticsQuantum mechanicsMathematicsElectronChiral symmetryCombinatoricsQuarkNambu–Jona-Lasinio modelGraphene research and applicationsTopological Materials and PhenomenaQuantum and electron transport phenomena
Magic-angle helical trilayer graphene | Litcius