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Novel electronic states seen in graphene

A simple system made from two sheets of graphene has been converted from an insulator to a superconductor. The finding holds promise for opening up studies of an unconventional form of superconductivity.
  1. Eugene J. Mele

    1. Eugene J. Mele is in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104, USA.

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In two papers in Nature, Cao et al.1,2 report the discovery of new electronic ground states in twisted bilayer graphene — a pair of single-atom-thick sheets of carbon atoms, stacked with their honeycomb lattices rotated out of alignment. The authors interpret one of these states2 as a correlated Mott insulator, a non-conducting state produced by strong repulsive interactions between electrons. The other1 is a superconductor, a state of zero electrical resistance produced by effective attractive interactions between electrons. The insulator turns into the superconductor when a small number of charge carriers are added to the graphene. This connection between the states is unlikely to be a coincidence — as Sherlock Holmes might have commented, “the universe is rarely so lazy”.

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Nature 556, 37-38 (2018)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-018-02660-4

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