2011/10/31 by Pablo San-Jose, Pablo San-José, Jose Gonzalez +3 · 10 citations
Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Carbon Nanotubes in Composites #Graphene research and applications #Quantum and electron transport phenomena #cond-mat.mes-hall
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.108.216802
published as Phys. Rev. Lett. 108, 216802 (2012) · 5 pages, 3 figures, published version
arxiv created 2012/05/23 · openalex publication_date 2012/05/23 · arxiv updated 2012/05/24 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We study the effect of spatial modulations in the interlayer hopping of graphene bilayers, such as those that arise upon shearing or twisting. We show that their single-particle physics, characterized by charge accumulation and recurrent formation of zero-energy bands as the pattern period L increases, is governed by a non-Abelian gauge potential arising in the low-energy electronic theory due to the coupling between layers. We show that such gauge-type couplings give rise to a potential that, for certain discrete values of L, spatially confines states at zero energy in particular regions of the moiré patterns. We also draw the connection between the recurrence of the flat zero-energy bands and the non-Abelian character of the potential.