Electric Field-Induced Hole- and Electron-Type Flat Bands in Twisted Double Bilayer Graphene

Abstract

Application of a finite electric field and small twist angle between two graphene bilayers leads to widely tunable electronic structures that support emergent phenomena. Here, we measure the electronic structure of twisted double bilayer graphene with twist angles of 3.1$^{\circ}$ and 6.0$^{\circ}$ using micro-focused angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (microARPES) on \textit{in situ} gated samples. At a twist angle of 6.0$^{\circ}$, we find that the dispersion around the valence and conduction band extrema is unchanged compared to separate graphene bilayers, whereas electric field tunable hybridisation gaps and band flattening effects occur at higher binding energies. In the 3.1$^{\circ}$ structure, we find that the resulting superlattice drives dispersion changes around the valence and conduction band edges. Increasing the gate-induced doping in the bottom bilayer leads to the formation of flat bands between the valence band maximum in the bottom bilayer and conduction band minimum in the top bilayer. Our experiments establish combinations of twist angle and electric field that potentially support strong electron-hole excitations and that provide a benchmark for the theoretical description of moderately twisted double bilayer graphene.