Playing God with Moiré Materials
Allan MacDonald (U of Texas at Austin)
When layers extracted from van der Waals crystals that are overlaid with a difference in lattice constant or a relative twist, they form a moiré pattern. In semiconductors and semimetals, the low-energy electronic properties of these systems are accurately described by Hamiltonians that have the periodicity of the moiré pattern – forming artificial crystals with lattice constants on the 10 nm scale. Because the lattice constants are so large it is possible to move through the periodic table of these materials by making them part of a field-effect-transistor. I will discuss some of the new physics that has been predicted [1-3] and observed in this family of quantum meta-materials.
[1] R. Bistritzer, and A.H.MacDonald, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 26, 12233 ( 2011).
[2] F. Wu, T. Lovorn, E. Tutuc, and A.H.MacDonald, Phys. Rev. Lett. 121, 026402 (2018).
[3] F. Wu, T. Lovorn, E. Tutuc, I. Martin, and A.H.MacDonald, Phys. Rev. Lett. 122, 086402 (2019).
