Breakdown of the interlayer coherence in twisted bilayer graphene

Coherent motion of electrons in Bloch states is one of the fundamental concepts of charge conduction in solid-state physics. In layered materials, however, such a condition often breaks down for the interlayer conduction, when the interlayer coupling is significantly reduced by, e.g., a large interl...

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Published inPhysical review letters Vol. 110; no. 9; p. 096602
Main Authors Kim, Youngwook, Yun, Hoyeol, Nam, Seung-Geol, Son, Minhyeok, Lee, Dong Su, Kim, Dong Chul, Seo, S, Choi, Hee Cheul, Lee, Hu-Jong, Lee, Sang Wook, Kim, Jun Sung
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States 27.02.2013
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Summary:Coherent motion of electrons in Bloch states is one of the fundamental concepts of charge conduction in solid-state physics. In layered materials, however, such a condition often breaks down for the interlayer conduction, when the interlayer coupling is significantly reduced by, e.g., a large interlayer separation. We report that complete suppression of coherent conduction is realized even in an atomic length scale of layer separation in twisted bilayer graphene. The interlayer resistivity of twisted bilayer graphene is much higher than the c-axis resistivity of Bernal-stacked graphite and exhibits strong dependence on temperature as well as on external electric fields. These results suggest that the graphene layers are significantly decoupled by rotation and incoherent conduction is a main transport channel between the layers of twisted bilayer graphene.
ISSN:1079-7114
DOI:10.1103/physrevlett.110.096602