Abstract:
Twistronics and straintronics have emerged as powerful approaches for engineering lattice structures and interactions in van der Waals materials, opening new avenues toward quantum phases, emergent phenomena, and novel device functionalities. In this talk, I will present two recent surprising findings in twisted and strained graphene. First, I will discuss how large-angle twisted bilayer graphene, widely assumed to be electronically trivial, can instead develop strong interlayer coupling and unexpected electronic reconstruction in a regime near the crossover between quasicrystalline and commensurate order. Second, I will present how graphene can be transformed into a flat-band, strongly correlated electronic system through our unique strain-engineering strategy, thereby creating opportunities for emergent phenomena and new quantum matters. These results highlight how twist and strain provide complementary and powerful means of reshaping electronic matter, revealing that even seemingly simple graphene can host remarkably rich and unexpected quantum phases when its geometry is strategically designed.