Double Moiré with a Twist: Supermoiré in Encapsulated Graphene

A periodic spatial modulation, as created by a moiré pattern, has been extensively studied with the view to engineer and tune the properties of graphene. Graphene encapsulated by hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) when slightly misaligned with the top and bottom hBN layers experiences two interfering mo...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Nano letters 2020-02, Vol.20 (2), p.979-988
Main Authors: Anđelković, Miša, Milovanović, Slaviša P, Covaci, Lucian, Peeters, François M
Format: Article
Language:English
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:A periodic spatial modulation, as created by a moiré pattern, has been extensively studied with the view to engineer and tune the properties of graphene. Graphene encapsulated by hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) when slightly misaligned with the top and bottom hBN layers experiences two interfering moiré patterns, resulting in a so-called supermoiré (SM). This leads to a lattice and electronic spectrum reconstruction. A geometrical construction of the nonrelaxed SM patterns allows us to indicate qualitatively the induced changes in the electronic properties and to locate the SM features in the density of states and in the conductivity. To emphasize the effect of lattice relaxation, we report band gaps at all Dirac-like points in the hole doped part of the reconstructed spectrum, which are expected to be enhanced when including interaction effects. Our result is able to distinguish effects due to lattice relaxation and due to the interfering SM and provides a clear picture on the origin of recently experimentally observed effects in such trilayer heterostuctures.
ISSN:1530-6984
1530-6992
DOI:10.1021/acs.nanolett.9b04058