English

Tunable electrochemistry with moir\'e flat bands and topological defects at twisted bilayer graphene

Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics 2022-02-24 v1 Materials Science Chemical Physics

Abstract

Tailoring electron transfer dynamics across solid-liquid interfaces is fundamental to the interconversion of electrical and chemical energy. Stacking atomically thin layers with a very small azimuthal misorientation to produce moir\'e superlattices enables the controlled engineering of electronic band structures and the formation of extremely flat electronic bands. Here, we report a strong twist angle dependence of heterogeneous charge transfer kinetics at twisted bilayer graphene electrodes with the greatest enhancement observed near the 'magic angle' (~1.1 degrees). This effect is driven by the angle-dependent tuning of moir\'e-derived flat bands that modulate electron transfer processes with the solution-phase redox couple. Combined experimental and computational analysis reveals that the variation in electrochemical activity with moir\'e angle is controlled by atomic reconstruction of the moir\'e superlattice at twist angles <2 degrees, and topological defect AA stacking regions produce a large anomalous local electrochemical enhancement that cannot be accounted for by the elevated local density of states alone. Our results introduce moir\'e flat band materials as a distinctively tunable paradigm for mediating electrochemical transformations.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2108.06826,
  title  = {Tunable electrochemistry with moir\'e flat bands and topological defects at twisted bilayer graphene},
  author = {Yun Yu and Kaidi Zhang and Holden Parks and Mohammad Babar and Stephen Carr and Isaac M. Craig and Madeline Van Winkle and Artur Lyssenko and Takashi Taniguchi and Kenji Watanabe and Venkatasubramanian Viswanathan and D. Kwabena Bediako},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2108.06826},
  year   = {2022}
}

Comments

21 pages, 5 figures