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Superconductors, orbital magnets and correlated states in magic-angle bilayer graphene

Lu, Xiaobo; Stepanov, Petr; Yang, Wei; Xie, Ming; Aamir, Mohammed Ali; Das, Ipsita; Urgell, Carles; Watanabe, Kenji; Taniguchi, Takashi; Zhang, Guangyu; Bachtold, Adrian; MacDonald, Allan H.; Efetov, Dmitri K.

NATURE
2019
VL / 574 - BP / 653 - EP / +
abstract
Superconductivity can occur under conditions approaching broken-symmetry parent states(1). In bilayer graphene, the twisting of one layer with respect to the other at 'magic' twist angles of around 1 degree leads to the emergence of ultra-flat moire superlattice minibands. Such bands are a rich and highly tunable source of strong-correlation physics(2-5), notably superconductivity, which emerges close to interaction-induced insulating states(6,7). Here we report the fabrication of magic-angle twisted bilayer graphene devices with highly uniform twist angles. The reduction in twist-angle disorder reveals the presence of insulating states at all integer occupancies of the fourfold spin-valley degenerate flat conduction and valence bands-that is, at moire band filling factors nu = 0, +/- 1, +/- 2, +/- 3. At nu approximate to -2, superconductivity is observed below critical temperatures of up to 3 kelvin. We also observe three new superconducting domes at much lower temperatures, close to the nu = 0 and. = +/- 1 insulating states. Notably, at nu = +/- 1 we find states with non-zero Chern numbers. For nu = -1 the insulating state exhibits a sharp hysteretic resistance enhancement when a perpendicular magnetic field greater than 3.6 tesla is applied, which is consistent with a field-driven phase transition. Our study shows that broken-symmetry states, interaction-driven insulators, orbital magnets, states with non-zero Chern numbers and superconducting domes occur frequently across a wide range of moire flat band fillings, including close to charge neutrality. This study provides a more detailed view of the phenomenology of magic-angle twisted bilayer graphene, adding to our evolving understanding of its emergent properties.

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