Marcin Mucha-Kruczynski

Cloning of Dirac fermions in graphene superlattices

Superlattices have attracted great interest because their use may make it possible to modify the spectra of two-dimensional electron systems and, ultimately, create materials with tailored electronic properties. In previous studies (see, for example, refs 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8), it proved difficult to realize superlattices with short periodicities and weak disorder, and most of their observed features could be explained in terms of cyclotron orbits commensurate with the superlattice. Evidence for the formation of superlattice minibands (forming a fractal spectrum known as Hofstadter’s butterfly) has been limited to the observation of new low-field oscillations and an internal structure within Landau levels. Here we report transport properties of graphene placed on a boron nitride substrate and accurately aligned along its crystallographic directions. The substrate’s moiré potential acts as a superlattice and leads to profound changes in the graphene’s electronic spectrum. Second-generation Dirac points appear as pronounced peaks in resistivity, accompanied by reversal of the Hall effect. The latter indicates that the effective sign of the charge carriers changes within graphene’s conduction and valence bands. Strong magnetic fields lead to Zak-type cloning of the third generation of Dirac points, which are observed as numerous neutrality points in fields where a unit fraction of the flux quantum pierces the superlattice unit cell. Graphene superlattices such as this one provide a way of studying the rich physics expected in incommensurable quantum systems and illustrate the possibility of controllably modifying the electronic spectra of two-dimensional atomic crystals by varying their crystallographic alignment within van der Waals heterostuctures.

Interaction-Driven Spectrum Reconstruction in Bilayer Graphene

A correlated-electron phase was observed at low temperatures in suspended graphene bilayers with high carrier mobilities. The nematic phase transition in electronic liquids, driven by Coulomb interactions, represents a new class of strongly correlated electronic ground states. We studied suspended samples of bilayer graphene, annealed so that it achieves very high quasiparticle mobilities (greater than 106 square centimers per volt-second). Bilayer graphene is a truly two-dimensional material with complex chiral electronic spectra, and the high quality of our samples allowed us to observe strong spectrum reconstructions and electron topological transitions that can be attributed to a nematic phase transition and a decrease in rotational symmetry. These results are especially surprising because no interaction effects have been observed so far in bilayer graphene in the absence of an applied magnetic field.

Generic miniband structure of graphene on a hexagonal substrate

Using a general symmetry-based approach, we provide a classification of generic miniband structures for electrons in graphene placed on substrates with the hexagonal Bravais symmetry. In particular, we identify conditions at which the first moire miniband is separated from the rest of the spectrum by either one or a group of three isolated mini Dirac points and is not obscured by dispersion surfaces coming from other minibands. In such cases, the Hall coefficient exhibits two distinct alternations of its sign as a function of charge carrier density.

Strained bilayer graphene : band structure topology and Landau level spectrum

We show that topology of the low-energy band structure in bilayer graphene critically depends on mechanical deformations of the crystal which may easily develop in suspended graphene flakes. We describe the Lifshitz transition that takes place in strained bilayers upon splitting the parabolic bands at intermediate energies into several Dirac cones at the energy scale of a few meV. Then, we show how this affects the electron Landau level spectra and the quantum Hall effect.

Characterization of graphene through anisotropy of constant-energy maps in angle-resolved photoemission.

We theoretically show how constant-energy maps of the angle-resolved photoemission intensity can be used to test wave function symmetry in graphene. For monolayer graphene, we demonstrate that the observed anisotropy of angle-resolved photoelectron spectroscopy spectra is a manifestation of what has been recently branded as an electronic chirality. For bilayer graphene, we show that the anisotropy of the constant-energy maps may be used to extract information about the magnitude and sign of interlayer coupling parameters and about symmetry breaking inflicted on a bilayer by the underlying substrate.

Electron?hole asymmetry and energy gaps in bilayer graphene

We review the tight-binding model of bilayer graphene which describes four low-energy electronic bands near the corner of the first Brillouin zone. The model takes into account terms arising from nearest and next-nearest neighbour hopping within each layer, non-orthogonality of atomic orbitals, various inter-layer couplings, as well as three independent parameters that describe differences between the on-site energies of the four atoms in the unit cell. We generalize the derivation of the two-component effective Hamiltonian that describes the behaviour of chiral quasiparticles at very low energy, taking these terms into account. Then, we explain how the various terms produce features in the electronic band structure, focussing on electron-hole asymmetry and the opening of an energy gap between the conduction and valence bands.

Anomalous sequence of quantum Hall liquids revealing a tunable Lifshitz transition in bilayer graphene.

Bilayer graphene is a unique system where both the Fermi energy and the low-energy electron dispersion can be tuned. This is brought about by an interplay between trigonal warping and the band gap opened by a transverse electric field. Here, we drive the Lifshitz transition in bilayer graphene to experimentally controllable carrier densities by applying a large transverse electric field to a h-BN-encapsulated bilayer graphene structure. We perform magnetotransport measurements and investigate the different degeneracies in the Landau level spectrum. At low magnetic fields, the observation of filling factors -3 and -6 quantum Hall states reflects the existence of three maxima at the top of the valence-band dispersion. At high magnetic fields, all integer quantum Hall states are observed, indicating that deeper in the valence band the constant energy contours are singly connected. The fact that we observe ferromagnetic quantum Hall states at odd-integer filling factors testifies to the high quality of our sample. This enables us to identify several phase transitions between correlated quantum Hall states at intermediate magnetic fields, in agreement with the calculated evolution of the Landau level spectrum. The observed evolution of the degeneracies, therefore, reveals the presence of a Lifshitz transition in our system.

Dirac edges of fractal magnetic minibands in graphene with hexagonal moiré superlattices

We find a systematic reappearance of massive Dirac features at the edges of consecutive minibands formed at magnetic fields B_{p/q}=\frac{p}{q}\phi_0/S providing rational magnetic flux through a unit cell of the moire superlattice created by a hexagonal substrate for electrons in graphene. The Dirac-type features in the minibands at B=B_{p/q} determine a hierarchy of gaps in the surrounding fractal spectrum, and show that these minibands have topological insulator properties. Using the additional q-fold degeneracy of magnetic minibands at B_{p/q}, we trace the hierarchy of the gaps to their manifestation in the form of incompressible states upon variation of the carrier density and magnetic field.

Moiré superlattice effects in graphene/boron-nitride van der Waals heterostructures

Van der Waals heterostructures of graphene and hexagonal boron nitride feature a moire superlattice for graphenes Dirac electrons. Here, we review the effects generated by this superlattice, including a specific miniband structure featuring gaps and secondary Dirac points, and a fractal spectrum of magnetic minibands known as Hofstadters butterfly.

Infrared absorption by graphene–hBN heterostructures

We propose a theory of optical absorption in monolayer graphene–hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) heterostructures. In highly oriented heterostructures, the hBN underlay produces a long-range moire superlattice potential for the graphene electrons which modifies the selection rules for absorption of incoming photons in the infrared to visible frequency range. The details of the absorption spectrum modification depend on the relative strength of the various symmetry-allowed couplings between the graphene electrons and the hBN, and the resulting nature of the reconstructed band structure.