University of Pennsylvania scientists have recently conducted a study that shows how patterned, periodic deformations of a single layer of graphene transforms it into a material with electronic properties previously seen in twisted graphene bilayers. This system also hosts additional unexpected and interesting conducting states at the boundary.
Through a better understanding of how unique properties occur when single sheets of graphene are subjected to periodic strain, this work has the potential to create quantum devices such as orbital magnets and superconductors in the future.
After conducting computer simulations of single-layered experiments, the researchers were surprised to find new evidence of unexpected phenomena along the surface of the material but only along one side. Generally, topology in the bulk associates with surface properties, and when that’s the case all surfaces inherit the property, says Mele. Here, the fact that there were edge modes on one side and not the other struck me as being deeply unusual.
This finding was unexpected because in this system the average pseudo-magnetic field, induced when the system is strained, was zeroâpositive in one area but negative in the other, which the researchers hypothesized would cancel out any unique phenomena. If the magnetic field is zero, you probably won’t get any interesting physics, says Phong. On the contrary, we found that even though the average magnetic field is zero, it still gives you some interesting physics at the edge.
To explain this unexpected result, Phong took a closer look at a similar experimental system where single sheets of graphene are bent to simulate a constant instead of periodic strain induced field. Phong found that this system had the same topological index, meaning that edge states that only thrive on a specific side of the material would also occur. The physics here was similar and seemed to be the right explanation for the phenomenology we were working on, Phong says.
Overall, this study predicts that flat bands, similar to the ones found in twisted bilayer graphene, are created by depositing an atomically thin single layer onto a bed-of-nails substrate that induces a periodic distortion on the graphene sheet.
The researchers are already progressing towards an even deeper understanding of these single-layered systems. One avenue of further research involves a collaboration with assistant professor Bo Zhen to study the same phenomenon using light waves. The researchers are also interested in seeing if other unique properties that exist in twisted bilayer graphene might also occur within single-layer systems.
Although the physics is simple, meaning that you can get the system to behave the way you want in a more controlled way, the phenomenology that you can get out of it is not. It’s very rich, and we’re still uncovering new things as we speak, Phong says.
Since these single-layer systems are simpler to work with, this enhanced theoretical understanding has the potential to aid in future discoveries in the field of edge state physics, including possible new devices such as ultra-small, incredibly fast quantum materials.
There’s a huge effort right now to understand these twisted graphene bilayers, and I think an interesting question we’re nailing here is the essential ingredients of a physical system that could actually do that, says Mele. We’re building artificial structures that you couldn’t build from the top down at an interesting length scaleâbigger than atoms, smaller than you can do by lithographyâand, if you have control of that, there’s a lot of things you can do.
