Angle-dependent chiral tunneling in biased twisted bilayer graphene

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Benlakhouy, Nadia, Feddi, El Mustapha, Fatimy, Abdelouahed El
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Benlakhouy, Nadia
Feddi, El Mustapha
Fatimy, Abdelouahed El
author_facet Benlakhouy, Nadia
Feddi, El Mustapha
Fatimy, Abdelouahed El
contents In twisted bilayer graphene (TBLG), chiral tunneling can be tuned by parameters such as the twist angle, barrier height, and Fermi energy. This differs from the tunneling behavior observed in monolayer and Bernal bilayer graphene, where electrons either pass completely through or are fully blocked due to the Klein paradox. Here we investigate the effect of a perpendicular interlayer bias on electron tunneling through electrostatic barriers in TBLG. Using a dual-gated model, which controls the carrier density and interlayer potential difference independently, we compute the transmission and reflection probabilities of electrons at different angles and energies for representative twist angles of $θ= 1.8^{\circ}$, $3.89^{\circ}$, and $9.43^{\circ}$. We find that a moderate bias suppresses normal-incidence transmission by opening a band gap in the low-energy spectrum. Our results show this leads to near-total reflection at low energy, with transmission starting to increase just above the gap due to twist-dependent conducting channels. The applied bias breaks the system's effective inversion symmetry, resulting in pronounced direction-dependent and valley-specific asymmetries in the angular distribution of transmitted electrons. We show that electrons incident at different angles show notable variations in transmission under bias. Furthermore, interlayer bias modulates Fabry--Pérot--like resonances in the TBLG barrier, shifting the energies of transmission peaks and altering their intensity.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2507_20391
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Angle-dependent chiral tunneling in biased twisted bilayer graphene
Benlakhouy, Nadia
Feddi, El Mustapha
Fatimy, Abdelouahed El
Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics
In twisted bilayer graphene (TBLG), chiral tunneling can be tuned by parameters such as the twist angle, barrier height, and Fermi energy. This differs from the tunneling behavior observed in monolayer and Bernal bilayer graphene, where electrons either pass completely through or are fully blocked due to the Klein paradox. Here we investigate the effect of a perpendicular interlayer bias on electron tunneling through electrostatic barriers in TBLG. Using a dual-gated model, which controls the carrier density and interlayer potential difference independently, we compute the transmission and reflection probabilities of electrons at different angles and energies for representative twist angles of $θ= 1.8^{\circ}$, $3.89^{\circ}$, and $9.43^{\circ}$. We find that a moderate bias suppresses normal-incidence transmission by opening a band gap in the low-energy spectrum. Our results show this leads to near-total reflection at low energy, with transmission starting to increase just above the gap due to twist-dependent conducting channels. The applied bias breaks the system's effective inversion symmetry, resulting in pronounced direction-dependent and valley-specific asymmetries in the angular distribution of transmitted electrons. We show that electrons incident at different angles show notable variations in transmission under bias. Furthermore, interlayer bias modulates Fabry--Pérot--like resonances in the TBLG barrier, shifting the energies of transmission peaks and altering their intensity.
title Angle-dependent chiral tunneling in biased twisted bilayer graphene
topic Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.20391