Electronic structure of 30{\deg} twisted double bilayer graphene

TL;DR

This study investigates the electronic properties of 30° twisted double bilayer graphene, revealing interlayer decoupling at low energies and complex phenomena at Q points due to interlayer coupling, using a tight-binding approach.

Contribution

It introduces a detailed tight-binding analysis of 30° twisted double bilayer graphene, highlighting interlayer decoupling and new electronic states caused by interlayer interactions.

Findings

Interlayer decoupling in low-energy electronic properties.

Emergence of Van Hove singularities at Q points.

Complex charge distribution patterns at Q points.

Abstract

In this paper, the electronic properties of 30{\deg} twisted double bilayer graphene, which loses the translational symmetry due to the incommensurate twist angle, are studied by means of the tight-binding approximation. We demonstrate the interlayer decoupling in the low-energy region from various electronic properties, such as the density of states, effective band structure, optical conductivity and Landau level spectrum. However, at Q points, the interlayer coupling results in the appearance of new Van Hove singularities in the density of states, new peaks in the optical conductivity and importantly the 12-fold-symmetry-like electronic states. The k-space tight-binding method is adopted to explain this phenomenon. The electronic states at Q points show the charge distribution patterns more complex than the 30{\deg} twisted bilayer graphene due to the symmetry decrease. These phenomena appear also in the 30{\deg} twisted interface between graphene monolayer and AB stacked bilayer.