Enhanced Intervalley Scattering of Twisted Bilayer Graphene by Periodic AB Stacked Atoms

TL;DR

This study reveals that periodic AB stacked atoms in twisted bilayer graphene enhance intervalley scattering by breaking sublattice symmetry, which can be used to control electronic properties at the atomic level.

Contribution

It demonstrates that periodic AB stacked atoms specifically increase intervalley scattering in twisted bilayer graphene, providing a new method for atomic-scale manipulation of electronic behavior.

Findings

Enhanced intervalley scattering observed due to periodic AB stacked atoms.

Periodic AB stacked atoms break sublattice degeneracy locally.

Intervalley but not intravalley scattering is affected.

Abstract

The electronic properties of twisted bilayer graphene on SiC substrate were studied via combination of transport measurements and scanning tunneling microscopy. We report the observation of enhanced intervalley scattering from one Dirac cone to the other, which contributes to weak localization, of the twisted bilayer graphene by increasing the interlayer coupling strength. Our experiment and analysis demonstrate that the enhanced intervalley scattering is closely related to the periodic AB stacked atoms (the A atom of layer 1 and the B atom of layer 2 that have the same horizontal positions) that break the sublattice degeneracy of graphene locally. We further show that these periodic AB stacked atoms affect intervalley but not intravalley scattering. The result reported here provides an effective way to atomically manipulate the intervalley scattering of graphene.