Topological crystalline insulator phase in graphene multilayers

Abstract

While the experimental progress on three dimensional topological insulators is rapid, the development of their two dimensional counterparts has been comparatively slow, despite their technological promise. The main reason is materials challenges of the to date only realizations of two-dimensional topological insulators, in semiconductor quantum wells. Here we identify a two dimensional topological insulator in a material which does not face similar challenges and which is by now most widely available and well-charaterized: graphene. For certain commensurate interlayer twists graphene multilayers are insulators with sizable bandgaps. We show that they are moreover in a topological phase protected by crystal symmetry. As its fundamental signature, this topological state supports one-dimensional boundary modes. They form low-dissipation quantum wires that can be defined purely electrostatically.

5 pages, 5 figures

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Cited by in corpus (12)

• Tunable symmetry breaking and helical edge transport in a graphene quantum spin Hall state
• Higher-Order Topological Insulator in Twisted Bilayer Graphene
• Strain-induced partially flat band, helical snake states, and interface superconductivity in topological crystalline insulators
• Emergent geometric frustration and flat band in moiré bilayer graphene
• Layered Topological Crystalline Insulators
• Quantum Valley Hall effect without Berry curvature
• Electric Field Tunable Band Gap in Commensurate Twisted Bilayer Graphene
• Glide-symmetric topological crystalline insulator phase in a nonprimitive lattice
• Tunable band gap in twisted bilayer graphene
• Quantum Valley and Sub-valley Hall Effect in the Large Angle Twisted Bilayer Graphene
• Progress on band structure engineering of twisted bilayer and two-dimensional moiré heterostructures
• Driven quantum tunneling and pair creation with graphene Landau levels