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Unravelling the Topological Edge States of Twisted Bilayer Graphene

Tuesday, 31 May 2022: 11:20
West Meeting Room 205 (Vancouver Convention Center)
M. Fortin-Deschenes (Yale University), R. Pu (Stony Brook University), C. Ma (Yale University), Y. Zhou, F. Zhang (The University of Texas at Dallas), X. Du (Stony Brook University), and F. Xia (Yale University)
Stacking two slightly lattice-mismatched or relatively twisted two-dimensional (2D) materials gives rise to an unexpected richness of physical phenomena due to the emerging moiré pattern. In particular, twisted-bilayer graphene (t-BLG) has recently been shown to host strongly correlated phases as well as unconventional superconductivity [1, 2]. While recent studies have hinted at the non-trivial topology of the moiré bands [3, 4], direct experimental observations of the topological edge states are still conspicuously missing. Herein, using superconducting quantum interference, we reconstruct the real-space current distribution in t-BLG Josephson junctions (JJs) and reveal the presence of conductive edge states when the Fermi level is placed in the superlattice induced band gaps. These results suggest the non-trivial topology of t-BLG and lay the groundwork to understand and exploit the edge states in moiré materials.

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[2] Cao, Y., Fatemi, V., Demir, A., Fang, S., Tomarken, S. L., Luo, J. Y., ... & Jarillo-Herrero, P. (2018). Nature, 556(7699), 80-84.

[3] Park, M. J., Kim, Y., Cho, G. Y., & Lee, S. (2019). Physical review letters, 123(21), 216803.

[4] Ma, C.; Wang, Q.; Mills, S.; Chen, X.; Deng, B.; Yuan, S.; Li, C.; Watanabe, K.; Taniguchi, T.; Du, X.; Zhang, F.; Xia, F. Nano Letters 2020, 20, (8), 6076-6083.