Emergence of Frohlich polaron from interlayer electron-phonon coupling in van der Waals heterostructure

Abstract

Van der Waals heterostructures, vertical stacks of layered materials, offer newopportunities for novel quantum phenomena which are absent in their constituent components. Here we report the emergence of polaron quasiparticles at the interface of graphene/hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) heterostructures. Using nanospot angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy, we observe zone-corner replicas of h-BN valence band maxima, with energy spacing coincident with the highest phonon energy of the heterostructure|an indication of Frohlich polaron formation due to forward scattering electron-phonon coupling. Parabolic fitting of the h-BN bands yields an effective mass enhancement of ~ 2.3, suggesting an intermediate coupling strength. Our theoretical simulations based on Migdal-Eliashberg theory corroborate the experimental results, allowing the extraction of microscopic physical parameters. Moreover,renormalisation of graphene $\pi$ band is observed due to the hybridisation with the h-BN band. Our work generalises the polaron study from transition metal oxides to Van derWaals heterostructures with higher material exibility, highlighting interlayer coupling as an extra degree of freedom to explore emergent phenomena.

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• Polarons in two-dimensional atomic crystals
• Visualizing the Effect of an Electrostatic Gate with Angle-Resolved Photoemission Spectroscopy
• Two-dimensional plasmonic polarons in n-doped monolayer MoS2
• Moiré superlattice effects and band structure evolution in near-30-degree twisted bilayer graphene
• Intervalley Polaron in Atomically Thin Transition Metal Dichalcogenides
• Nanospot Angle-Resolved Photoemission Study of Bernal-Stacked Bilayer Graphene on Hexagonal Boron Nitride: Band Structure and Local Variation of Lattice Alignment
• Identification of large polarons and exciton polarons in rutile and anatase polymorphs of titanium dioxide
• Nearly-Resonant Crystalline-Phononic Coupling in Quantum Spin Liquid Candidate CsYbSe${}_2$
• Electron-plasmon interaction induced plasmonic-polaron band replication in epitaxial perovskite SrIrO${}_3$ films
• Electron-polaron--electron-polaron bound states in mass-gap graphene-like planar quantum electrodynamics: $s$-wave bipolarons
• On the electron-polaron--electron-polaron scattering and Landau levels in pristine graphene-like quantum electrodynamics
• Determination of interatomic coupling between two-dimensional crystals using angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy
• Theory of ARPES in Graphene-Based Moiré Superlattices
• Emergence of Quantum Confinement in Topological Kagome Superconductor CsV${}_3$Sb${}_5$ family
• Spectral properties and enhanced superconductivity in renormalized Migdal-Eliashberg theory
• Spin-dependent $\pi$${\pi }^{\ast }$ gap in graphene on a magnetic substrate
• Phonon-Mediated Quasiparticle Lifetime Renormalizations in Few-Layer Hexagonal Boron Nitride
• Manifestations of the electron-phonon interaction range in angle resolved photoemission spectra
• The quantum scale invariance in graphene-like quantum electrodynamics
• Composite polaron formed on surface of two-dimensional lattice system in weak coupling regime
• Spectral function of a bipolaron coupled to dispersive optical phonons
• Interfacial Polarons Driven by Charge Transfer In WSe2/Cuprate Superconductor Systems