Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Becker, Simon, Ge, Lingrui, Wittsten, Jens
Format: Preprint
Published: 2022
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2206.11891
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866929244596076544
author Becker, Simon
Ge, Lingrui
Wittsten, Jens
author_facet Becker, Simon
Ge, Lingrui
Wittsten, Jens
contents We consider a tight-binding model recently introduced by Timmel and Mele for strained moiré heterostructures. We consider two honeycomb lattices to which layer antisymmetric shear strain is applied to periodically modulate the tunneling between the lattices in one distinguished direction. This effectively reduces the model to one spatial dimension and makes it amenable to the theory of matrix-valued quasi-periodic operators. We then study the charge transport and spectral properties of this system, explaining the appearance of a Hofstadter-type butterfly and the occurrence of metal/insulator transitions that have recently been experimentally verified for non-interacting moiré systems. For sufficiently incommensurable moiré lengths, described by a diophantine condition, as well as strong coupling between the lattices, which can be tuned by applying physical pressure, this leads to the occurrence of localization phenomena.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2206_11891
institution arXiv
publishDate 2022
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Hofstadter butterflies and metal/insulator transitions for moiré heterostructures
Becker, Simon
Ge, Lingrui
Wittsten, Jens
Mathematical Physics
Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics
Materials Science
Strongly Correlated Electrons
Quantum Physics
We consider a tight-binding model recently introduced by Timmel and Mele for strained moiré heterostructures. We consider two honeycomb lattices to which layer antisymmetric shear strain is applied to periodically modulate the tunneling between the lattices in one distinguished direction. This effectively reduces the model to one spatial dimension and makes it amenable to the theory of matrix-valued quasi-periodic operators. We then study the charge transport and spectral properties of this system, explaining the appearance of a Hofstadter-type butterfly and the occurrence of metal/insulator transitions that have recently been experimentally verified for non-interacting moiré systems. For sufficiently incommensurable moiré lengths, described by a diophantine condition, as well as strong coupling between the lattices, which can be tuned by applying physical pressure, this leads to the occurrence of localization phenomena.
title Hofstadter butterflies and metal/insulator transitions for moiré heterostructures
topic Mathematical Physics
Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics
Materials Science
Strongly Correlated Electrons
Quantum Physics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2206.11891