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Strain-Induced Quantum Phase Transitions in Magic-Angle Graphene

Daniel E. Parker, Tomohiro Soejima (副島智大), Johannes Hauschild, Michael P. Zaletel, and Nick Bultinck
Phys. Rev. Lett. 127, 027601 – Published 6 July 2021
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Abstract

We investigate the effect of uniaxial heterostrain on the interacting phase diagram of magic-angle twisted bilayer graphene. Using both self-consistent Hartree-Fock and density-matrix renormalization group calculations, we find that small strain values (ε0.1%0.2%) drive a zero-temperature phase transition between the symmetry-broken “Kramers intervalley-coherent” insulator and a nematic semimetal. The critical strain lies within the range of experimentally observed strain values, and we therefore predict that strain is at least partly responsible for the sample-dependent experimental observations.

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  • Received 11 January 2021
  • Accepted 30 May 2021

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.127.027601

© 2021 American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Condensed Matter, Materials & Applied Physics

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Stretching Solves a Mystery of Magic-Angle Graphene

Published 6 July 2021

Numerical simulations show that discrepancies between experiments on graphene bilayers can be attributed to tiny amounts of strain applied to the samples.   

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Authors & Affiliations

Daniel E. Parker1,2, Tomohiro Soejima (副島智大)2, Johannes Hauschild2, Michael P. Zaletel2,3, and Nick Bultinck2,4

  • 1Department of Physics, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA
  • 2Department of Physics, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720, USA
  • 3Materials Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California 94720, USA
  • 4Department of Physics, Ghent University, 9000 Ghent, Belgium

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Issue

Vol. 127, Iss. 2 — 9 July 2021

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