Topological Floquet engineering of twisted bilayer graphene
ORAL
Abstract
We investigate the topological properties of Floquet-engineered twisted bilayer graphene above the magic angle driven by circularly polarized laser pulses. Employing a full Moiré-unit-cell tight-binding Hamiltonian based on first-principles electronic structure, we show that the band topology in the bilayer, at twisting angles above 1.05 degrees, essentially corresponds to the one of single-layer graphene. However, the ability to open topologically trivial gaps in this system by a bias voltage between the layers enables the full topological phase diagram to be explored, which is not possible in single-layer graphene. Circularly polarized light induces a transition to a topologically nontrivial Floquet band structure with the Berry curvature analogous to a Chern insulator. Importantly, the twisting allows for tuning electronic energy scales, which implies that the electronic bandwidth can be tailored to match realistic driving frequencies in the ultraviolet or midinfrared photon-energy regimes.
*DFG Emmy Noether program (No. SE 2558/2-1).
European Research Council (No. ERC-2015-AdG694097).
The Flatiron Institute is a division of the Simons Foundation.
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Presenters
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Michael Sentef
- Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter, Hamburg, Germany
- Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter, Luruper Chaussee 149, 22761 Hamburg, Germany
- Max Planck Inst Structure & Dynamics of Matter
- Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter