Linking thermodynamic correlation signatures and superconductivity in twisted trilayer graphene

ORAL

Abstract

Twisted graphene multilayers exhibit strong electronic correlations, which manifest in a range of experimental signatures. Yet how these signatures relate to each other and the microscopic ground states---and how twist angle and band structure reshape them---remains poorly understood. Here we study this interplay by correlating local thermodynamic and transport measurements in a twisted trilayer graphene (TTG) sample with unequal angles and flat electronic bands. We use a scanning single-electron transistor to map the impact of electron-electron interactions in a region of the sample where the local twist angle evolves smoothly. We observe gapped correlated insulators and a ``sawtooth'' in electronic compressibility, both exhibiting pronounced electron-hole ($e$-$h$) asymmetry with distinct ``magic" angles for conduction and valence bands. Subsequent transport measurements in the same region reveal robust superconductivity with a similar $e$-$h$ asymmetry. Our measurements indicate that superconductivity is not directly tied to the correlated insulators. Instead, its critical temperature correlates closely with the strength of the sawtooth in compressibility, suggesting a common origin or link between the two. By combining a local probe with transport measurements, we uncover connections between superconductivity and thermodynamic correlation signatures that are not apparent from either technique in isolation, highlighting the power of our dual approach and establishing their dependence on interlayer twist angles in TTG.

*Measurements were supported by the QSQM Energy Frontier Research Center, U.S. DOE Office of Science, Basic Energy Sciences (BES), Awards DE-SC0021238 and DE-AC02-76SF00515), and NSF (DMR-2237050). K.W. and T.T. acknowledge JSPS KAKENHI (21H05233, 23H02052), CREST (JPMJCR24A5), JST, and WPI-MEXT, Japan. J.C.H. was supported by the Stanford Q-FARM Fellowship. Measurement infrastructure was funded in part by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation's EPiQS Initiative (GBMF9460). Part of this work was performed at the Stanford Nano Shared Facilities, supported by the NSF (ECCS-2026822).

Publication: Linking thermodynamic correlation signatures and superconductivity in twisted trilayer graphene
Jesse C. Hoke, Yifan Li, Yuwen Hu, Julian May-Mann, Kenji Watanabe, Takashi Taniguchi, Trithep Devakul, Aaron Sharpe, Benjamin E. Feldman
arXiv:2509.03583

Presenters

  • Aaron Layne Sharpe

    • Stanford University
    • SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory

Authors

  • Aaron Layne Sharpe

    • Stanford University
    • SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory
  • Jesse C Hoke

    • HRL Laboratories, LLC
  • Yifan Li

    • Stanford University
  • Yuwen Hu

    • Stanford University
  • Julian May-Mann

    • Stanford University
  • Kenji Watanabe

    • National Institute for Materials Science
    • Research Center for Functional Materials, National Institute of Materials Science, 1-1 Namiki Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-0044, Japan
  • Takashi Taniguchi

    • National Institute for Materials Science
    • Research Center for Materials Nanoarchitectonics, National Institute for Materials Science
    • International Center for Materials Nanoarchitectonics, National Institute of Materials Science, 1-1 Namiki Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-0044, Japan
    • Research Center for Functional Materials, National Institute of Materials Science, 1-1 Namiki Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-0044, Japan
  • Trithep Devakul

    • Stanford University
  • Ben E Feldman

    • Stanford University