Collective magnetic excitations in AA- and AB-stacked graphene bilayers

TL;DR

This paper predicts novel magnetic plasmon modes in AA- and AB-stacked bilayer graphene due to perfect nesting, suggesting potential for magnetic order and experimental observation in artificial systems.

Contribution

It introduces and analyzes transverse plasmon-polaritons as magnetic excitations in bilayer graphene, highlighting their unique properties and possible implications for magnetic phenomena.

Findings

Magnetic plasmon modes arise from perfect nesting in bilayer graphene.

AA-stacked bilayer graphene can exhibit zero-frequency modes at neutrality, indicating in-plane orbital ferromagnetism.

Potential observation of these modes in artificial setups like optical lattices.

Abstract

We discuss novel transverse plasmon-polaritons that are hosted by AA- and AB-stacked bilayer graphene due to perfect nesting. They are composed of oscillating counterflow currents in between the layers, giving a clear interpretation for these collective modes as magnetic excitations carrying magnetic moment parallel to the planes. For AA-stacked bilayer graphene, these modes can reach zero frequency at the neutrality point and we thus predict a symmetry broken ground-state leading to in-plane orbital ferromagnetism. Even though it could be hard to detect them in real solid-state devices, these novel magnetic plasmons should be observable in artificial set-ups such as optical lattices. Also, our results might be relevant for magic angle twisted bilayer graphene samples as their electronic properties are mostly determined by confined AA-stacked regions.