Substrate-Dependent Band Structures in Trilayer Graphene/h-BN Heterostructures.

The tight-binding model has been spectacularly successful in elucidating the electronic and optical properties of a vast number of materials. Within the tight-binding model, the hopping parameters that determine much of the band structure are often taken as constants. Here, using ABA-stacked trilayer graphene as the model system, we show that, contrary to conventional wisdom, the hopping parameters and therefore band structures are not constants, but are systematically variable depending on their relative alignment angle between h-BN. Moreover, the addition or removal of the h-BN substrate results in an inversion of the K and K^{'} valley in trilayer graphene's lowest Landau level. Our work illustrates the oft-ignored and rather surprising impact of the substrates on band structures of 2D materials.

Fractional and Symmetry-Broken Chern Insulators in Tunable Moiré Superlattices.

We study dual-gated graphene bilayer/hBN moiré superlattices. Under zero magnetic field, we observe additional resistance peaks as the charge density varies. The peaks' resistivities vary approximately quadratically with an applied perpendicular displacement field D. Data fit to a continuum model yield a bilayer/hBN interaction energy scale ∼30 ± 10 meV. Under a perpendicular magnetic field, we observe Hofstadter butterfly spectra as well as symmetry-broken and fractional Chern insulator states. Their topology and lattice symmetry breaking is D-tunable, enabling the realization of new topological states in this system.

Tunable Lifshitz Transitions and Multiband Transport in Tetralayer Graphene.

As the Fermi level and band structure of two-dimensional materials are readily tunable, they constitute an ideal platform for exploring the Lifshitz transition, a change in the topology of a material's Fermi surface. Using tetralayer graphene that host two intersecting massive Dirac bands, we demonstrate multiple Lifshitz transitions and multiband transport, which manifest as a nonmonotonic dependence of conductivity on the charge density n and out-of-plane electric field D, anomalous quantum Hall sequences and Landau level crossings that evolve with n, D, and B.

Interlayer resistance of misoriented MoS2.

Interlayer misorientation in transition metal dichalcogenides alters their interlayer distance, total energy, electronic band structure, and vibrational modes, but its effect on the interlayer resistance is not known. This study analyzes the interlayer resistance of misoriented bilayer MoS2 as a function of the misorientation angle, and it shows that interlayer misorientation exponentially increases the electron resistivity while leaving the hole resistivity almost unchanged. The physics, determined by the wave functions at the high symmetry points, are generic among the popular semiconducting transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs). The asymmetrical effect of misorientation on the electron and hole transport may be exploited in the design and optimization of vertical transport devices such as a bipolar transistor. Density functional theory provides the interlayer coupling elements used for the resistivity calculations.

Graphene contacts to a HfSe2/SnS2 heterostructure.

Two-dimensional (2D) heterostructures and all-2D contacts are of high interest for electronic device applications, and the SnS2/HfSe2 bilayer heterostructure with graphene contacts has some unique, advantageous properties. The SnS2/HfSe2 heterostructure is interesting because of the strong intermixing of the two conduction bands and the large work function of the SnS2. The band lineup of the well separated materials indicates a type II heterostructure, but the conduction band minimum of the SnS2/HfSe2 bilayer is a coherent superposition of the orbitals from the two layers with a spectral weight of 60% on the SnS2 and 40% on the HfSe2 for AA stacking. These relative weights can be either increased or reversed by an applied vertical field. A 3×3 supercell of graphene and a 2×2 supercell of SnS2/HfSe2 have a lattice mismatch of 0.1% and both the SnS2/HfSe2 conduction band at M and the graphene Dirac point at K are zone-folded to Γ. Placing graphene on the SnS2/HfSe2 bilayer results in large n-type charge transfer doping of the SnS2/HfSe2 bilayer, on the order of 1013/cm2, and the charge transfer is accompanied by a negative Schottky barrier contact for electron injection from the graphene into the SnS2/HfSe2 bilayer conduction band. Binding energies and the anti-crossing gaps of the graphene and the SnS2/HfSe2 electronic bands both show that the coupling of graphene to the HfSe2 layer is significantly larger than its coupling to the SnS2 layer. A tunneling Hamiltonian estimate of the contact resistance of the graphene to the SnS2/HfSe2 heterostructure predicts an excellent low-resistance contact.