MIT Physicists Discover a Family of “Magic” Superconducting Graphene Structures
An illustration showing superconducting Cooper pairs in magic-angle multilayer graphene family. The adjacent layers are twisted in an alternating fashion. Credit: Ella Maru Studio
The discovery could inform the design of practical superconducting devices.
When it comes to
Graphene, a single layer of carbon atoms arranged in a two-dimensional honeycomb lattice nanostructure is one of the most well-known 2D-materials. When you take two stacked layers of graphene and twist them at the magic angle, all kinds of powerful properties can emerge such as superconductivity and ferromagnetism.
In 2018, superconductivity. In this widely sought material state, an electrical current can flow through with zero energy loss. Recently, the same group of researchers found a similar superconductive state exists in twisted trilayer graphene — a structure made from three graphene layers stacked at a precise, new magic angle.
Now the research team reports that — you guessed it — four and five graphene layers can be twisted and stacked at new magic angles to elicit robust superconductivity at low temperatures. This latest discovery, published on July 7, 2022, in the journal Nature Materials, establishes the various twisted and stacked configurations of graphene as the first known “family” of multilayer magic-angle superconductors. The team also identified similarities and differences between graphene family…
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