IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/natcom/v16y2025i1d10.1038_s41467-025-56141-0.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Direct probing of energy gaps and bandwidth in gate-tunable flat band graphene systems

Author

Listed:
  • Jin Jiang

    (École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL))

  • Qixuan Gao

    (École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL))

  • Zekang Zhou

    (École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL))

  • Cheng Shen

    (École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL))

  • Mario Di Luca

    (École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL))

  • Emily Hajigeorgiou

    (École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL))

  • Kenji Watanabe

    (National Institute for Materials Science)

  • Takashi Taniguchi

    (National Institute for Materials Science)

  • Mitali Banerjee

    (École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL)
    École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL))

Abstract

Moiré systems featuring flat electronic bands exhibit a vast landscape of emergent exotic quantum states, making them one of the resourceful platforms in condensed matter physics. Tuning these systems via twist angle and the electric field greatly enhances our comprehension of their strongly correlated ground states. Here, we report a technique to investigate the nuanced intricacies of band structures in dual-gated multilayer graphene systems. We utilize the Landau levels of a decoupled monolayer graphene to extract the electric field-dependent bilayer graphene charge neutrality point gap. Then, we extend this method to analyze the evolution of the band gap and the flat bandwidth in twisted mono-bilayer graphene. The band gap maximizes at the same displacement field where the flat bandwidth minimizes, concomitant with the emergence of a strongly correlated phase. Moreover, we extract integer and fractional quantum Hall gaps to further demonstrate the strength of this method. Our technique paves the way for improving the understanding of electronic band structures in versatile flat band systems.

Suggested Citation

  • Jin Jiang & Qixuan Gao & Zekang Zhou & Cheng Shen & Mario Di Luca & Emily Hajigeorgiou & Kenji Watanabe & Takashi Taniguchi & Mitali Banerjee, 2025. "Direct probing of energy gaps and bandwidth in gate-tunable flat band graphene systems," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 16(1), pages 1-9, December.
  • Handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:16:y:2025:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-025-56141-0
    DOI: 10.1038/s41467-025-56141-0
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-56141-0
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/s41467-025-56141-0?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Xiaomeng Liu & Zeyu Hao & Eslam Khalaf & Jong Yeon Lee & Yuval Ronen & Hyobin Yoo & Danial Haei Najafabadi & Kenji Watanabe & Takashi Taniguchi & Ashvin Vishwanath & Philip Kim, 2020. "Tunable spin-polarized correlated states in twisted double bilayer graphene," Nature, Nature, vol. 583(7815), pages 221-225, July.
    2. H. Polshyn & J. Zhu & M. A. Kumar & Y. Zhang & F. Yang & C. L. Tschirhart & M. Serlin & K. Watanabe & T. Taniguchi & A. H. MacDonald & A. F. Young, 2020. "Electrical switching of magnetic order in an orbital Chern insulator," Nature, Nature, vol. 588(7836), pages 66-70, December.
    3. Xiaobo Lu & Petr Stepanov & Wei Yang & Ming Xie & Mohammed Ali Aamir & Ipsita Das & Carles Urgell & Kenji Watanabe & Takashi Taniguchi & Guangyu Zhang & Adrian Bachtold & Allan H. MacDonald & Dmitri K, 2019. "Superconductors, orbital magnets and correlated states in magic-angle bilayer graphene," Nature, Nature, vol. 574(7780), pages 653-657, October.
    4. Jesse C. Hoke & Yifan Li & Julian May-Mann & Kenji Watanabe & Takashi Taniguchi & Barry Bradlyn & Taylor L. Hughes & Benjamin E. Feldman, 2024. "Uncovering the spin ordering in magic-angle graphene via edge state equilibration," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-7, December.
    5. Yonglong Xie & Biao Lian & Berthold Jäck & Xiaomeng Liu & Cheng-Li Chiu & Kenji Watanabe & Takashi Taniguchi & B. Andrei Bernevig & Ali Yazdani, 2019. "Spectroscopic signatures of many-body correlations in magic-angle twisted bilayer graphene," Nature, Nature, vol. 572(7767), pages 101-105, August.
    6. K. S. Novoselov & A. K. Geim & S. V. Morozov & D. Jiang & M. I. Katsnelson & I. V. Grigorieva & S. V. Dubonos & A. A. Firsov, 2005. "Two-dimensional gas of massless Dirac fermions in graphene," Nature, Nature, vol. 438(7065), pages 197-200, November.
    7. Yuan Cao & Daniel Rodan-Legrain & Oriol Rubies-Bigorda & Jeong Min Park & Kenji Watanabe & Takashi Taniguchi & Pablo Jarillo-Herrero, 2020. "Tunable correlated states and spin-polarized phases in twisted bilayer–bilayer graphene," Nature, Nature, vol. 583(7815), pages 215-220, July.
    8. Kevin P. Nuckolls & Myungchul Oh & Dillon Wong & Biao Lian & Kenji Watanabe & Takashi Taniguchi & B. Andrei Bernevig & Ali Yazdani, 2020. "Strongly correlated Chern insulators in magic-angle twisted bilayer graphene," Nature, Nature, vol. 588(7839), pages 610-615, December.
    9. Yuanbo Zhang & Yan-Wen Tan & Horst L. Stormer & Philip Kim, 2005. "Experimental observation of the quantum Hall effect and Berry's phase in graphene," Nature, Nature, vol. 438(7065), pages 201-204, November.
    10. Yuhang Jiang & Xinyuan Lai & Kenji Watanabe & Takashi Taniguchi & Kristjan Haule & Jinhai Mao & Eva Y. Andrei, 2019. "Charge order and broken rotational symmetry in magic-angle twisted bilayer graphene," Nature, Nature, vol. 573(7772), pages 91-95, September.
    11. U. Zondiner & A. Rozen & D. Rodan-Legrain & Y. Cao & R. Queiroz & T. Taniguchi & K. Watanabe & Y. Oreg & F. Oppen & Ady Stern & E. Berg & P. Jarillo-Herrero & S. Ilani, 2020. "Cascade of phase transitions and Dirac revivals in magic-angle graphene," Nature, Nature, vol. 582(7811), pages 203-208, June.
    12. Kirill I. Bolotin & Fereshte Ghahari & Michael D. Shulman & Horst L. Stormer & Philip Kim, 2009. "Observation of the fractional quantum Hall effect in graphene," Nature, Nature, vol. 462(7270), pages 196-199, November.
    13. Harpreet Singh Arora & Robert Polski & Yiran Zhang & Alex Thomson & Youngjoon Choi & Hyunjin Kim & Zhong Lin & Ilham Zaky Wilson & Xiaodong Xu & Jiun-Haw Chu & Kenji Watanabe & Takashi Taniguchi & Jas, 2020. "Superconductivity in metallic twisted bilayer graphene stabilized by WSe2," Nature, Nature, vol. 583(7816), pages 379-384, July.
    14. Yuanbo Zhang & Tsung-Ta Tang & Caglar Girit & Zhao Hao & Michael C. Martin & Alex Zettl & Michael F. Crommie & Y. Ron Shen & Feng Wang, 2009. "Direct observation of a widely tunable bandgap in bilayer graphene," Nature, Nature, vol. 459(7248), pages 820-823, June.
    15. Yuan Cao & Valla Fatemi & Shiang Fang & Kenji Watanabe & Takashi Taniguchi & Efthimios Kaxiras & Pablo Jarillo-Herrero, 2018. "Unconventional superconductivity in magic-angle graphene superlattices," Nature, Nature, vol. 556(7699), pages 43-50, April.
    16. Jeong Min Park & Yuan Cao & Kenji Watanabe & Takashi Taniguchi & Pablo Jarillo-Herrero, 2021. "Flavour Hund’s coupling, Chern gaps and charge diffusivity in moiré graphene," Nature, Nature, vol. 592(7852), pages 43-48, April.
    17. Dillon Wong & Kevin P. Nuckolls & Myungchul Oh & Biao Lian & Yonglong Xie & Sangjun Jeon & Kenji Watanabe & Takashi Taniguchi & B. Andrei Bernevig & Ali Yazdani, 2020. "Cascade of electronic transitions in magic-angle twisted bilayer graphene," Nature, Nature, vol. 582(7811), pages 198-202, June.
    18. Qingxin Li & Yiwei Chen & LingNan Wei & Hong Chen & Yan Huang & Yujian Zhu & Wang Zhu & Dongdong An & Junwei Song & Qikang Gan & Qi Zhang & Kenji Watanabe & Takashi Taniguchi & Xiaoyang Shi & Kostya S, 2024. "Strongly coupled magneto-exciton condensates in large-angle twisted double bilayer graphene," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-8, December.
    19. Alexander Kerelsky & Leo J. McGilly & Dante M. Kennes & Lede Xian & Matthew Yankowitz & Shaowen Chen & K. Watanabe & T. Taniguchi & James Hone & Cory Dean & Angel Rubio & Abhay N. Pasupathy, 2019. "Maximized electron interactions at the magic angle in twisted bilayer graphene," Nature, Nature, vol. 572(7767), pages 95-100, August.
    20. A. Uri & S. Grover & Y. Cao & J. A. Crosse & K. Bagani & D. Rodan-Legrain & Y. Myasoedov & K. Watanabe & T. Taniguchi & P. Moon & M. Koshino & P. Jarillo-Herrero & E. Zeldov, 2020. "Mapping the twist-angle disorder and Landau levels in magic-angle graphene," Nature, Nature, vol. 581(7806), pages 47-52, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Le Liu & Shihao Zhang & Yanbang Chu & Cheng Shen & Yuan Huang & Yalong Yuan & Jinpeng Tian & Jian Tang & Yiru Ji & Rong Yang & Kenji Watanabe & Takashi Taniguchi & Dongxia Shi & Jianpeng Liu & Wei Yan, 2022. "Isospin competitions and valley polarized correlated insulators in twisted double bilayer graphene," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-7, December.
    2. Si-yu Li & Zhengwen Wang & Yucheng Xue & Yingbo Wang & Shihao Zhang & Jianpeng Liu & Zheng Zhu & Kenji Watanabe & Takashi Taniguchi & Hong-jun Gao & Yuhang Jiang & Jinhai Mao, 2022. "Imaging topological and correlated insulating states in twisted monolayer-bilayer graphene," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-7, December.
    3. Anushree Datta & M. J. Calderón & A. Camjayi & E. Bascones, 2023. "Heavy quasiparticles and cascades without symmetry breaking in twisted bilayer graphene," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-8, December.
    4. Dohyun Kim & Jaeuk Seo & Sangsu Yer & Seungil Baek & Woohyun Cho & Shoujun Zheng & Yong-Hyun Kim & Mali Zhao & Heejun Yang, 2025. "Thermal biasing for lattice symmetry breaking and topological edge state imaging," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 16(1), pages 1-8, December.
    5. Keshav Singh & Aaron Chew & Jonah Herzog-Arbeitman & B. Andrei Bernevig & Oskar Vafek, 2024. "Topological heavy fermions in magnetic field," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-12, December.
    6. Pratap Chandra Adak & Subhajit Sinha & Debasmita Giri & Dibya Kanti Mukherjee & Chandan & L. D. Varma Sangani & Surat Layek & Ayshi Mukherjee & Kenji Watanabe & Takashi Taniguchi & H. A. Fertig & Arij, 2022. "Perpendicular electric field drives Chern transitions and layer polarization changes in Hofstadter bands," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-8, December.
    7. J. Díez-Mérida & A. Díez-Carlón & S. Y. Yang & Y.-M. Xie & X.-J. Gao & J. Senior & K. Watanabe & T. Taniguchi & X. Lu & A. P. Higginbotham & K. T. Law & Dmitri K. Efetov, 2023. "Symmetry-broken Josephson junctions and superconducting diodes in magic-angle twisted bilayer graphene," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-7, December.
    8. Saisab Bhowmik & Bhaskar Ghawri & Youngju Park & Dongkyu Lee & Suvronil Datta & Radhika Soni & K. Watanabe & T. Taniguchi & Arindam Ghosh & Jeil Jung & U. Chandni, 2023. "Spin-orbit coupling-enhanced valley ordering of malleable bands in twisted bilayer graphene on WSe2," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-8, December.
    9. Canxun Zhang & Tiancong Zhu & Tomohiro Soejima & Salman Kahn & Kenji Watanabe & Takashi Taniguchi & Alex Zettl & Feng Wang & Michael P. Zaletel & Michael F. Crommie, 2023. "Local spectroscopy of a gate-switchable moiré quantum anomalous Hall insulator," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-7, December.
    10. Dacen Waters & Ruiheng Su & Ellis Thompson & Anna Okounkova & Esmeralda Arreguin-Martinez & Minhao He & Katherine Hinds & Kenji Watanabe & Takashi Taniguchi & Xiaodong Xu & Ya-Hui Zhang & Joshua Folk , 2024. "Topological flat bands in a family of multilayer graphene moiré lattices," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-9, December.
    11. J. González & T. Stauber, 2023. "Ising superconductivity induced from spin-selective valley symmetry breaking in twisted trilayer graphene," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-7, December.
    12. Dorri Halbertal & Simon Turkel & Christopher J. Ciccarino & Jonas B. Profe & Nathan Finney & Valerie Hsieh & Kenji Watanabe & Takashi Taniguchi & James Hone & Cory Dean & Prineha Narang & Abhay N. Pas, 2022. "Unconventional non-local relaxation dynamics in a twisted trilayer graphene moiré superlattice," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-8, December.
    13. Jesse C. Hoke & Yifan Li & Julian May-Mann & Kenji Watanabe & Takashi Taniguchi & Barry Bradlyn & Taylor L. Hughes & Benjamin E. Feldman, 2024. "Uncovering the spin ordering in magic-angle graphene via edge state equilibration," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-7, December.
    14. Gal Shavit & Stevan Nadj-Perge & Gil Refael, 2025. "Ephemeral superconductivity atop the false vacuum," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 16(1), pages 1-8, December.
    15. Dongfei Wang & De-Liang Bao & Qi Zheng & Chang-Tian Wang & Shiyong Wang & Peng Fan & Shantanu Mishra & Lei Tao & Yao Xiao & Li Huang & Xinliang Feng & Klaus Müllen & Yu-Yang Zhang & Roman Fasel & Pasc, 2023. "Twisted bilayer zigzag-graphene nanoribbon junctions with tunable edge states," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-9, December.
    16. Martin Claassen & Lede Xian & Dante M. Kennes & Angel Rubio, 2022. "Ultra-strong spin–orbit coupling and topological moiré engineering in twisted ZrS2 bilayers," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-8, December.
    17. Yu-Bo Liu & Jing Zhou & Congjun Wu & Fan Yang, 2023. "Charge-4e superconductivity and chiral metal in 45°-twisted bilayer cuprates and related bilayers," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-8, December.
    18. Hongyun Zhang & Qian Li & Youngju Park & Yujin Jia & Wanying Chen & Jiaheng Li & Qinxin Liu & Changhua Bao & Nicolas Leconte & Shaohua Zhou & Yuan Wang & Kenji Watanabe & Takashi Taniguchi & Jose Avil, 2024. "Observation of dichotomic field-tunable electronic structure in twisted monolayer-bilayer graphene," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-7, December.
    19. Maine Christos & Subir Sachdev & Mathias S. Scheurer, 2023. "Nodal band-off-diagonal superconductivity in twisted graphene superlattices," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-11, December.
    20. Bhaskar Ghawri & Phanibhusan S. Mahapatra & Manjari Garg & Shinjan Mandal & Saisab Bhowmik & Aditya Jayaraman & Radhika Soni & Kenji Watanabe & Takashi Taniguchi & H. R. Krishnamurthy & Manish Jain & , 2022. "Breakdown of semiclassical description of thermoelectricity in near-magic angle twisted bilayer graphene," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-7, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:16:y:2025:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-025-56141-0. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.