Ultraheavy and Ultrarelativistic Dirac Quasiparticles in Sandwiched Graphenes

• Published in: Nano letters Vol. 20; no. 5; pp. 3030 - 3038
• Main Authors: Carr, Stephen, Li, Chenyuan, Zhu, Ziyan, Kaxiras, Efthimios, Sachdev, Subir, Kruchkov, Alexander
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States American Chemical Society 13.05.2020
• Subjects: lattice relaxation; flat bands; ab initio calculations; Graphene; moiré superlattices; moiré superlattices
• ISSN: 1530-6984; 1530-6992; 1530-6992
• DOI: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.9b04979

Electrons in quantum materials exhibiting coexistence of dispersionless (flat) bands piercing dispersive (steep) bands give rise to strongly correlated phenomena and are associated with unconventional superconductivity. We show that in twisted sandwiched graphene (TSWG)a three-layer van der Waals heterostructure with a twisted middle layersteep Dirac cones can coexist with dramatic band flattening at the same energy scale, if twisted by 1.5°. This phenomenon is not stable in the simplified continuum models. The key result of this Letter is that the flat bands become stable only as a consequence of lattice relaxation processes included in our atomistic calculations. Further on, external fields can change the relative energy offset between the Dirac cone vertex and the flat bands and enhance band hybridization, which could permit controlling correlated phases. Our work establishes twisted sandwiched graphene as a new platform for research into strongly interacting two-dimensional quantum matter.