Controlling the Interlayer Coupling of Twisted Bilayer Graphene

Lan Meng, Wei Yan, Zhao-Dong Chu, Yanfeng Zhang, Lei Feng, Rui-Fen Dou, Jia-Cai Nie, Lin He

Published 2012-08-04Version 1

The interlayer coupling of twisted bilayer graphene could markedly affect its electronic band structure. A current challenge required to overcome in experiment is how to precisely control the coupling and therefore tune the electronic properties of the bilayer graphene. Here, we describe a facile method to modulate the local interlayer coupling by adsorption of single molecule magnets onto the twisted bilayer graphene and report the characterization of its electronic band structure using scanning tunneling microscopy and spectroscopy. The low-energy Van Hove singularities (VHSs) and superlattice Dirac cones, induced by the interlayer coupling and graphene-on-graphene moir\'e respectively, are observed in the tunneling spectra. Our experiment demonstrates that the energy difference of the two VHSs, which reflects the magnitude of interlayer coupling, can be tuned by the local coverage density of adsorption.