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Volume 590 Issue 7846, 18 February 2021

Volume 590 Issue 7846

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Probing twistronics

The discovery of superconductivity in twisted bilayer graphene sparked interest in the electronic properties of similarly distorted 2D crystal lattices. The twisted structure is created by slightly rotating two crystal networks in bilayer graphene, but the resulting lattices need to be imaged at the atomic level for their properties to be understood. In this week’s issue, Ado Jorio and his colleagues use visible light in a nano-Raman spectroscope to image reconstructed twisted bilayer graphene and to probe the vibrational modes of the lattice. The technique revealed the localization of some vibrational modes and allowed the team to study how these influence electronic properties. The researchers note that the results are a step towards understanding phonon-related effects and could aid the development of ‘twistronics‘.

Cover image: Cassiano Rabelo.

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