Robust flat bands in twisted trilayer graphene quasicrystals

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates the existence of flat electronic bands in twisted trilayer graphene quasicrystals with various twist angles, revealing their structural and electronic diversity and the importance of lattice relaxation and interference effects.

Contribution

It provides direct structural and electronic characterization of flat bands in twisted trilayer graphene quasicrystals, extending correlated physics to quasiperiodic systems.

Findings

Flat bands exist in various twisted trilayer graphene configurations.

Atomic and electronic structures vary significantly with twist angles.

Localization of flat bands shows distinct symmetries in different regions.

Abstract

Moir\'e structures formed by twisting three layers of graphene with two independent twist angles present an ideal platform for studying correlated quantum phenomena, as an infinite set of angle pairs is predicted to exhibit flat bands. Moreover, the two mutually incommensurate moir\'e patterns among the twisted trilayer graphene (TTG) can form highly tunable moir\'e quasicrystals. This enables us to extend correlated physics in periodic moir\'e crystals to quasiperiodic systems. However, direct local characterization of the structure of the moir\'e quasicrystals and of the resulting flat bands are still lacking, which is crucial to fundamental understanding and control of the correlated moir\'e physics. Here, we demonstrate the existence of flat bands in a series of TTGs with various twist angle pairs and show that the TTGs with different magic angle pairs are strikingly dissimilar in their atomic and electronic structures. The lattice relaxation and the interference between moir\'e patterns are highly dependent on the twist angles. Our direct spatial mappings, supported by theoretical calculations, reveal that the localization of the flat bands exhibits distinct symmetries in different regions of the moir\'e quasicrystals.