Moiré nematic phase in twisted double bilayer graphene
Abstract
Graphene moiré superlattices display electronic flat bands. At integer fillings of these flat bands, energy gaps due to strong electron-electron interactions are generally observed. However, the presence of other correlation-driven phases in twisted graphitic systems at non-integer fillings is unclear. Here, we report the existence of threefold rotational symmetry breaking in twisted double bilayer graphene. Using spectroscopic imaging over large and uniform areas to characterize the direction and degree of C3 symmetry breaking, we find it to be prominent only at energies corresponding to the flat bands and nearly absent in the remote bands. We demonstrate that the magnitude of the rotational symmetry breaking does not depend on the degree of the heterostrain or the displacement field, being instead a manifestation of an interaction-driven electronic nematic phase. We show that the nematic phase is a primary order that arises from the normal metal state over a wide range of doping away from charge. Furthermore, our modelling suggests that the nematic instability is not associated with the local scale of the graphene lattice, but is an emergent phenomenon at the scale of the moiré lattice.
- Authors:
-
- Columbia Univ., New York, NY (United States)
- RWTH Aachen Univ., and JARA Fundamentals of Future Information Technology (Germany)
- Harvard Univ., Cambridge, MA (United States)
- Harvard Univ., Cambridge, MA (United States); Univ. of Innsbruck (Austria)
- Drexel Univ., Philadelphia, PA (United States)
- National Inst. for Materials Science, Tsukuba (Japan)
- Max Planck Inst. for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter, Hamburg (Germany); Songshan Lake Materials Laboratory, Guangdong (China)
- RWTH Aachen Univ., and JARA Fundamentals of Future Information Technology (Germany); Max Planck Inst. for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter, Hamburg (Germany)
- Univ. of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN (United States)
- Max Planck Inst. for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter, Hamburg (Germany); Flatiron Inst., New York, NY (United States); UPV/EHU, Donostia (Spain)
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- Univ. of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN (United States)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES); US Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR); MEXT; JSPS KAKENHI; CREST
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1961319
- Grant/Contract Number:
- SC0020045; FA9550-16-1-0601; JPMXP0112101001; JP20H00354; JPMJCR15F3
- Resource Type:
- Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Name:
- Nature Physics
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Volume: 18; Journal Issue: 2; Journal ID: ISSN 1745-2473
- Publisher:
- Nature Publishing Group (NPG)
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSICS; Electronic properties and materials; Quantum fluids and solids
Citation Formats
Rubio-Verdú, Carmen, Turkel, Simon, Song, Yuan, Klebl, Lennart, Samajdar, Rhine, Scheurer, Mathias S., Venderbos, Jörn W. F., Watanabe, Kenji, Taniguchi, Takashi, Ochoa, Héctor, Xian, Lede, Kennes, Dante M., Fernandes, Rafael M., Rubio, Ángel, and Pasupathy, Abhay N. Moiré nematic phase in twisted double bilayer graphene. United States: N. p., 2021.
Web. doi:10.1038/s41567-021-01438-2.
Rubio-Verdú, Carmen, Turkel, Simon, Song, Yuan, Klebl, Lennart, Samajdar, Rhine, Scheurer, Mathias S., Venderbos, Jörn W. F., Watanabe, Kenji, Taniguchi, Takashi, Ochoa, Héctor, Xian, Lede, Kennes, Dante M., Fernandes, Rafael M., Rubio, Ángel, & Pasupathy, Abhay N. Moiré nematic phase in twisted double bilayer graphene. United States. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-021-01438-2
Rubio-Verdú, Carmen, Turkel, Simon, Song, Yuan, Klebl, Lennart, Samajdar, Rhine, Scheurer, Mathias S., Venderbos, Jörn W. F., Watanabe, Kenji, Taniguchi, Takashi, Ochoa, Héctor, Xian, Lede, Kennes, Dante M., Fernandes, Rafael M., Rubio, Ángel, and Pasupathy, Abhay N. Thu .
"Moiré nematic phase in twisted double bilayer graphene". United States. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-021-01438-2. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1961319.
@article{osti_1961319,
title = {Moiré nematic phase in twisted double bilayer graphene},
author = {Rubio-Verdú, Carmen and Turkel, Simon and Song, Yuan and Klebl, Lennart and Samajdar, Rhine and Scheurer, Mathias S. and Venderbos, Jörn W. F. and Watanabe, Kenji and Taniguchi, Takashi and Ochoa, Héctor and Xian, Lede and Kennes, Dante M. and Fernandes, Rafael M. and Rubio, Ángel and Pasupathy, Abhay N.},
abstractNote = {Graphene moiré superlattices display electronic flat bands. At integer fillings of these flat bands, energy gaps due to strong electron-electron interactions are generally observed. However, the presence of other correlation-driven phases in twisted graphitic systems at non-integer fillings is unclear. Here, we report the existence of threefold rotational symmetry breaking in twisted double bilayer graphene. Using spectroscopic imaging over large and uniform areas to characterize the direction and degree of C3 symmetry breaking, we find it to be prominent only at energies corresponding to the flat bands and nearly absent in the remote bands. We demonstrate that the magnitude of the rotational symmetry breaking does not depend on the degree of the heterostrain or the displacement field, being instead a manifestation of an interaction-driven electronic nematic phase. We show that the nematic phase is a primary order that arises from the normal metal state over a wide range of doping away from charge. Furthermore, our modelling suggests that the nematic instability is not associated with the local scale of the graphene lattice, but is an emergent phenomenon at the scale of the moiré lattice.},
doi = {10.1038/s41567-021-01438-2},
journal = {Nature Physics},
number = 2,
volume = 18,
place = {United States},
year = {Thu Dec 23 00:00:00 EST 2021},
month = {Thu Dec 23 00:00:00 EST 2021}
}
Works referenced in this record:
Spectroscopy of a tunable moiré system with a correlated and topological flat band
journal, May 2021
- Liu, Xiaomeng; Chiu, Cheng-Li; Lee, Jong Yeon
- Nature Communications, Vol. 12, Issue 1
Visualizing delocalized correlated electronic states in twisted double bilayer graphene
journal, May 2021
- Zhang, Canxun; Zhu, Tiancong; Kahn, Salman
- Nature Communications, Vol. 12, Issue 1
Band structure mapping of bilayer graphene via quasiparticle scattering
journal, September 2014
- Yankowitz, Matthew; Wang, Joel I-Jan; Li, Suchun
- APL Materials, Vol. 2, Issue 9
Nematic superconductivity stabilized by density wave fluctuations: Possible application to twisted bilayer graphene
journal, April 2019
- Kozii, Vladyslav; Isobe, Hiroki; Venderbos, Jörn W. F.
- Physical Review B, Vol. 99, Issue 14
Non-Abelian Dirac node braiding and near-degeneracy of correlated phases at odd integer filling in magic-angle twisted bilayer graphene
journal, July 2020
- Kang, Jian; Vafek, Oskar
- Physical Review B, Vol. 102, Issue 3
Unconventional superconductivity in magic-angle graphene superlattices
journal, March 2018
- Cao, Yuan; Fatemi, Valla; Fang, Shiang
- Nature, Vol. 556, Issue 7699
Soldering to a single atomic layer
journal, November 2007
- Girit, Çağlar Ö.; Zettl, A.
- Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 91, Issue 19
Microscopic pairing mechanism, order parameter, and disorder sensitivity in moiré superlattices: Applications to twisted double-bilayer graphene
journal, August 2020
- Samajdar, Rhine; Scheurer, Mathias S.
- Physical Review B, Vol. 102, Issue 6
Functional renormalization group for a large moiré unit cell
journal, August 2020
- Klebl, Lennart; Kennes, Dante M.; Honerkamp, Carsten
- Physical Review B, Vol. 102, Issue 8
Emergent ferromagnetism near three-quarters filling in twisted bilayer graphene
journal, July 2019
- Sharpe, Aaron L.; Fox, Eli J.; Barnard, Arthur W.
- Science, Vol. 365, Issue 6453
Electronic correlations in twisted bilayer graphene near the magic angle
journal, August 2019
- Choi, Youngjoon; Kemmer, Jeannette; Peng, Yang
- Nature Physics, Vol. 15, Issue 11
Tunable correlated Chern insulator and ferromagnetism in a moiré superlattice
journal, March 2020
- Chen, Guorui; Sharpe, Aaron L.; Fox, Eli J.
- Nature, Vol. 579, Issue 7797
Designing flat bands by strain
journal, July 2019
- Bi, Zhen; Yuan, Noah F. Q.; Fu, Liang
- Physical Review B, Vol. 100, Issue 3
Phases of a phenomenological model of twisted bilayer graphene
journal, August 2018
- Dodaro, J. F.; Kivelson, S. A.; Schattner, Y.
- Physical Review B, Vol. 98, Issue 7
Maximized electron interactions at the magic angle in twisted bilayer graphene
journal, July 2019
- Kerelsky, Alexander; McGilly, Leo J.; Kennes, Dante M.
- Nature, Vol. 572, Issue 7767
Tunable strain soliton networks confine electrons in van der Waals materials
journal, July 2020
- Edelberg, Drew; Kumar, Hemant; Shenoy, Vivek
- Nature Physics, Vol. 16, Issue 11
Tunable spin-polarized correlated states in twisted double bilayer graphene
journal, July 2020
- Liu, Xiaomeng; Hao, Zeyu; Khalaf, Eslam
- Nature, Vol. 583, Issue 7815
Correlated insulator behaviour at half-filling in magic-angle graphene superlattices
journal, March 2018
- Cao, Yuan; Fatemi, Valla; Demir, Ahmet
- Nature, Vol. 556, Issue 7699
Pairing in graphene-based moiré superlattices
journal, July 2020
- Scheurer, Mathias S.; Samajdar, Rhine
- Physical Review Research, Vol. 2, Issue 3
Efficient simulation of moiré materials using the density matrix renormalization group
journal, November 2020
- Soejima, Tomohiro; Parker, Daniel E.; Bultinck, Nick
- Physical Review B, Vol. 102, Issue 20
Electric-field-tunable electronic nematic order in twisted double-bilayer graphene
journal, May 2021
- Samajdar, Rhine; Scheurer, Mathias S.; Turkel, Simon
- 2D Materials, Vol. 8, Issue 3
Symmetry breaking in twisted double bilayer graphene
journal, September 2020
- He, Minhao; Li, Yuhao; Cai, Jiaqi
- Nature Physics, Vol. 17, Issue 1
Tuning superconductivity in twisted bilayer graphene
journal, January 2019
- Yankowitz, Matthew; Chen, Shaowen; Polshyn, Hryhoriy
- Science, Vol. 363, Issue 6431
Signatures of tunable superconductivity in a trilayer graphene moiré superlattice
journal, July 2019
- Chen, Guorui; Sharpe, Aaron L.; Gallagher, Patrick
- Nature, Vol. 572, Issue 7768
Liquid Crystals in an Electric Field
journal, July 1963
- Williams, Richard
- Nature, Vol. 199, Issue 4890
Moiréless correlations in ABCA graphene
journal, January 2021
- Kerelsky, Alexander; Rubio-Verdú, Carmen; Xian, Lede
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 118, Issue 4
What drives nematic order in iron-based superconductors?
journal, January 2014
- Fernandes, R. M.; Chubukov, A. V.; Schmalian, J.
- Nature Physics, Vol. 10, Issue 2
Tunable correlated states and spin-polarized phases in twisted bilayer–bilayer graphene
journal, May 2020
- Cao, Yuan; Rodan-Legrain, Daniel; Rubies-Bigorda, Oriol
- Nature
Nematicity and competing orders in superconducting magic-angle graphene
journal, April 2021
- Cao, Yuan; Rodan-Legrain, Daniel; Park, Jeong Min
- Science, Vol. 372, Issue 6539
Correlated states in twisted double bilayer graphene
journal, March 2020
- Shen, Cheng; Chu, Yanbang; Wu, QuanSheng
- Nature Physics, Vol. 16, Issue 5
Strong correlations and superconductivity in twisted bilayer graphene
journal, December 2018
- Kennes, Dante M.; Lischner, Johannes; Karrasch, Christoph
- Physical Review B, Vol. 98, Issue 24
Nematicity with a twist: Rotational symmetry breaking in a moiré superlattice
journal, August 2020
- Fernandes, Rafael M.; Venderbos, Jörn W. F.
- Science Advances, Vol. 6, Issue 32
Nematic Fermi Fluids in Condensed Matter Physics
journal, August 2010
- Fradkin, Eduardo; Kivelson, Steven A.; Lawler, Michael J.
- Annual Review of Condensed Matter Physics, Vol. 1, Issue 1
Band structure and topological properties of twisted double bilayer graphene
journal, June 2019
- Koshino, Mikito
- Physical Review B, Vol. 99, Issue 23
Charge order and broken rotational symmetry in magic-angle twisted bilayer graphene
journal, July 2019
- Jiang, Yuhang; Lai, Xinyuan; Watanabe, Kenji
- Nature, Vol. 573, Issue 7772
Moiré Flat Bands in Twisted Double Bilayer Graphene
journal, February 2020
- Haddadi, Fatemeh; Wu, QuanSheng; Kruchkov, Alex J.
- Nano Letters, Vol. 20, Issue 4
Nematic superconductivity in twisted bilayer graphene
journal, June 2020
- Chichinadze, Dmitry V.; Classen, Laura; Chubukov, Andrey V.
- Physical Review B, Vol. 101, Issue 22
Correlations and electronic order in a two-orbital honeycomb lattice model for twisted bilayer graphene
journal, December 2018
- Venderbos, Jörn W. F.; Fernandes, Rafael M.
- Physical Review B, Vol. 98, Issue 24