Twisted Bilayer Graphene: A Phonon Driven Superconductor

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that phonon-mediated interactions in twisted bilayer graphene can induce superconductivity near the magic angle, with predictions extending to other angles and densities, supported by ab initio calculations.

Contribution

It provides a phonon-driven mechanism for superconductivity in TBG and predicts its occurrence at various angles and densities beyond the magic angle.

Findings

Superconductivity in TBG is driven by strong electron-phonon coupling.

Critical temperature $T_c$ is around 1K at the magic angle.

Superconductivity may occur at other angles and higher densities.

Abstract

We study the electron-phonon coupling in twisted bilayer graphene (TBG), which was recently experimentally observed to exhibit superconductivity around the magic twist angle $\theta\approx 1.05^\circ$. We show that phonon-mediated electron electron attraction at the magic angle is strong enough to induce a conventional intervalley pairing between graphene valleys $K$ and $K'$ with a superconducting critical temperature $T_c\sim1K$, in agreement with the experiment. We predict that superconductivity can also be observed in TBG at many other angles $\theta$ and higher electron densities in higher Moir\'e bands, which may also explain the possible granular superconductivity of highly oriented pyrolytic graphite. We support our conclusions by \emph{ab initio} calculations.