2013/03/27 by B. Hunt, Benjamin Hunt, J. D. Sanchez-Yamagishi +16 · 6 citations
Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Band gap #Condensed matter physics #Dirac fermion #Graphene #Graphene research and applications #Heterojunction #Materials science #Nanotechnology #Physics #Quantum and electron transport phenomena #Topological Materials and Phenomena #cond-mat.mes-hall
paper · pdf · doi:10.1126/science.1237240
published as Science Online, May 16 2013 · 6+11 pages, 4 figures main text, 15 figures supplementary text
arxiv created 2013/03/27 · openalex publication_date 2013/05/17 · arxiv updated 2013/05/22 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
van der Waals heterostructures constitute a new class of artificial materials formed by stacking atomically thin planar crystals. We demonstrated band structure engineering in a van der Waals heterostructure composed of a monolayer graphene flake coupled to a rotationally aligned hexagonal boron nitride substrate. The spatially varying interlayer atomic registry results in both a local breaking of the carbon sublattice symmetry and a long-range moiré superlattice potential in the graphene. In our samples, this interplay between short- and long-wavelength effects resulted in a band structure described by isolated superlattice minibands and an unexpectedly large band gap at charge neutrality. This picture is confirmed by our observation of fractional quantum Hall states at ± 5/3 filling and features associated with the Hofstadter butterfly at ultrahigh magnetic fields.