Unconventional domain tessellations in moiré-of-moiré lattices

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Park, Daesung; Park, Changwon; Yananose, Kunihiro; Ko, Eunjung; Kim, Byunghyun; Engelke, Rebecca; Zhang, Xi; Davydov, Konstantin; Green, Matthew; Kim, Hyun-Mi; Park, Sang Hwa; Lee, Jae Heon; Kim, Seul-Gi; Kim, Hyeongkeun; Watanabe, Kenji; Taniguchi, Takashi; Yang, Sang Mo; Wang, Ke; Kim, Philip; Son, Young-Woo; Yoo, Hyobin
• 署名单位: Seoul National University (SNU); Sogang University; Korea Institute for Advanced Study (KIAS); Ewha Womans University; Harvard University; University of Minnesota System; University of Minnesota Twin Cities; Korea Electronics Technology Institute (KETI); National Institute for Materials Science; National Institute for Materials Science; Seoul National University (SNU)
• 刊物名称: Nature
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0028-2536
• DOI: 10.1038/s41586-025-08932-0
• 发表日期: 2025-05-22
• 关键词: electric-field; graphene; superconductivity; TRANSITION; stacking; disorder; ORDER

摘要

Imposing incommensurable periodicity on the periodic atomic lattice can lead to complex structural phases consisting of locally periodic structure bounded by topological defects1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7-8. Twisted trilayer graphene (TTG) is an ideal material platform to study the interplay between different atomic periodicities, which can be tuned by twist angles between the layers, leading to moir & eacute;-of-moir & eacute; lattices9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25-26. Interlayer and intralayer interactions between two interfaces in TTG transform this moir & eacute;-of-moir & eacute; lattice into an intricate network of domain structures at small twist angles, which can harbour exotic electronic behaviours9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25-26. Here we report a complete structural phase diagram of TTG with atomic-scale lattice reconstruction. Using transmission electron microscopy (TEM) combined with a new interatomic potential simulation27,28, we show several large-scale moir & eacute; lattices, including triangular, kagome and a corner-shared hexagram-shaped domain pattern. Each domain is bounded by a 2D network of domain-wall lattices. In the limit of small twist angles, two competing structural orders-rhombohedral and Bernal stackings-with a slight energy difference cause unconventional lattice reconstruction with spontaneous symmetry breaking (SSB) and nematic instability, highlighting the importance of long-range interlayer interactions across entire van der Waals layers. The diverse tessellation of distinct domains, whose topological network can be tuned by the adjustment of the twist angles, establishes TTG as a platform for exploring the interplay between emerging quantum properties and controllable nontrivial lattices.