Quasicrystalline electronic states in twisted bilayers and the effects of interlayer and sublattice symmetries

• Published in: Physical review. B 2021-01, Vol.103 (4), p.1, Article 045408
• Main Authors: Crosse, J. A., Moon, Pilkyung
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Atomic properties; Bilayers; Electron states; Electronic structure; Graphene; Interlayers; Lattices; Quasicrystals; Resonant interactions; Symmetry; Transition metal compounds
• ISSN: 2469-9950; 2469-9969
• DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevB.103.045408

We study the electronic structure of quasicrystals composed of incommensurate stacks of atomic layers. We consider two systems: A pair of square lattices with a relative twist angle of θ = 45 ∘ and a pair of hexagonal lattices with a relative twist angle of θ = 30 ∘ , with various interlayer interaction strengths. This constitutes every two-dimensional bilayer quasicrystal system. We investigate the resonant coupling governing the quasicrystalline order in each quasicrystal symmetry, and we calculate the quasiband dispersion. The resonant interaction emerges in bilayer quasicrystals if all the dominant interlayer interactions occur between the atomic orbitals that have the same magnetic quantum number. Thus, not only the quasicrystal composed of the widely studied graphene but also those composed of transition metal dichalcogenides will exhibit the quasicrystalline states. We find that some quasicrystalline states, which are usually obscured by decoupled monolayer states, are more prominent, i.e., "exposed," in the systems with strong interlayer interaction. We also show that we can switch the states between quasicrystalline configuration and its layer components by turning on and off the interlayer symmetry.