English

Twistronics of Kekul\'e Graphene: Honeycomb and Kagome Flat Bands

Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics 2024-01-09 v2 Strongly Correlated Electrons

Abstract

Kekul\'e-O order in graphene, which has recently been realized experimentally, induces Dirac electron masses on the order of m100meVm \sim 100 \text{meV}. We show that twisted bilayer graphene in which one or both layers have Kekul\'e-O order exhibits nontrivial flat electronic bands on honeycomb and kagome lattices. When only one layer has Kekul\'e-O order, there is a parameter regime for which the lowest four bands at charge neutrality form an isolated two-orbital honeycomb lattice model with two flat bands. The bandwidths are minimal at a magic twist angle θ0.7\theta \approx 0.7^\circ and Dirac mass m100meVm \approx 100 \text{meV}. When both layers have Kekul\'e-O order, there is a large parameter regime around θ1\theta\approx 1^\circ and m100meVm\gtrsim 100 \text{meV} in which the lowest three valence and conduction bands at charge neutrality each realize isolated kagome lattice models with one flat band, while the next three valence and conduction bands are flat bands on triangular lattices. These flat band systems may provide a new platform for strongly correlated phases of matter.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2305.19927,
  title  = {Twistronics of Kekul\'e Graphene: Honeycomb and Kagome Flat Bands},
  author = {Michael G. Scheer and Biao Lian},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2305.19927},
  year   = {2024}
}

Comments

19 pages, 8 figures