Alternating twisted mutilayer graphene: generic partition rules, double flat bands, and orbital magnetoelectric effect

TL;DR

This paper analyzes the electronic structures of alternating twisted multilayer graphene, deriving generic rules for flat bands and predicting novel correlation effects including a magnetoelectric response due to symmetry breaking.

Contribution

It provides analytical partition rules for low-energy bands in alternating twisted multilayer graphene and predicts new correlated phases with symmetry-breaking and magnetoelectric effects.

Findings

Derivation of generic partition rules for electronic structures.

Identification of flat bands coexisting with Dirac cones and quadratic bands.

Prediction of a symmetry-breaking state with orbital magnetoelectric effect.

Abstract

Twisted graphene systems have draw significant attention due to the discoveries of various correlated and topological phases. In particular, recently the alternating twisted trilayer graphene is discovered to exhibit unconventional superconductivity, which motivates us to study the electronic structures and possible interesting correlation effects of this class of alternating twisted graphene systems. In this work we consider generic alternating twisted multilayer graphene (ATMG) systems with $M$-$L$-$N$ stacking configurations, in which the $M$ ($L$) graphene layers and the $L$ ($N$) layers are twisted by an angle $\theta$ (-$\theta$). Based on analysis from a simplified $\textbf{k}\!\cdot\!\textbf{p}$ model approach, we analytically derive generic partition rules for the low-energy electronic structures, which exhibit various intriguing band dispersions including one pair of flat bands, two pairs of flat bands, as well as flat bands co-existing with with Dirac cones, quadratic bands, or more generally $E(\mathbf{k})\!\sim\!k^J$ dispersions ($J$ is positive integer) for each spin and valley. Such unusual non-interacting electronic structures may have unconventional correlation effects. Especially for a mirror symmetric ATMG system with two pairs of flat bands (per spin per valley), we find that Coulomb interactions may drive the system into a state breaking both time-reversal and mirror symmetries, which can exhibit a novel type of orbital magnetoelectric effect due to the interwining of electric polarization and orbital magnetization orders in the symmetry-breaking state.