Emergent flat band lattices in spatially periodic magnetic fields

TL;DR

This paper explores how periodic magnetic fields can induce flat band lattices in 2D materials, revealing distinct behaviors in Schrödinger and Dirac electrons and offering platforms for novel interaction-driven phases.

Contribution

It introduces a general approach to generate flat bands in 2D materials using periodic magnetic fields, highlighting differences between Schrödinger and Dirac electrons and explaining behaviors with tight-binding models.

Findings

Schrödinger electrons show recurring 'magic' magnetic field values for flat bands.

Dirac electrons exhibit asymptotically flat zero-energy bands without magic fields.

Zeeman coupling can induce flat bands with nonzero Chern numbers.

Abstract

Motivated by the recent discovery of Mott insulating phase and unconventional superconductivity due to the flat bands in twisted bilayer graphene, we propose more generic ways of getting two-dimensional (2D) emergent flat band lattices using either 2D Dirac materials or ordinary electron gas (2DEG) subject to moderate periodic orbital magnetic fields with zero spatial average. Employing both momentum-space and real-space numerical methods to solve the eigenvalue problems, we find stark contrast between Schr\"{o}dinger and Dirac electrons, i.e., the former show recurring "magic" values of the magnetic field when the lowest band becomes flat, while for the latter the zero-energy bands are asymptotically flat without magicness. By examining the Wannier functions localized by the smooth periodic magnetic fields, we are able to explain these nontrivial behaviors using minimal tight-binding models on a square lattice. The two cases can be interpolated by varying the $g$-factor or effective mass of a 2DEG and by taking into account the Zeeman coupling, which also leads to flat bands with nonzero Chern numbers for each spin. Our work provides flexible platforms for exploring interaction-driven phases in 2D systems with on-demand superlattice symmetries.