Realization of nearly dispersionless bands with strong orbital anisotropy from destructive interference in twisted bilayer MoS2

Recently, the twist angle between adjacent sheets of stacked van der Waals materials emerged as a new knob to engineer correlated states of matter in two-dimensional heterostructures in a controlled manner, giving rise to emergent phenomena such as superconductivity or correlated insulating states. Here, we use an ab initio based approach to characterize the electronic properties of twisted bilayer MoS2. We report that, in marked contrast to twisted bilayer graphene, slightly hole-doped MoS2 realizes a strongly asymmetric p(x)-p(y) Hubbard model on the honeycomb lattice, with two almost entirely dispersionless bands emerging due to destructive interference. The origin of these dispersionless bands, is similar to that of the flat bands in the prototypical Lieb or Kagome lattices and co-exists with the general band flattening at small twist angle due to the moire interference. We study the collective behavior of twisted bilayer MoS2 in the presence of interactions, and characterize an array of different magnetic and orbitally-ordered correlated phases, which may be susceptible to quantum fluctuations giving rise to exotic, purely quantum, states of matter. Twisted van der Waals systems are known to host flat electronic bands, originating from moire potential. Here, the authors predict from purely geometric considerations a new type of nearly dispersionless bands in twisted bilayer MoS2, resulting from destructive interference between effective lattice hopping matrix elements.

Automated summary

The study reveals that twisted bilayer MoS2 can achieve a strongly asymmetric p(x)-p(y) Hubbard model with two almost entirely dispersionless bands due to destructive interference. The emergence of these dispersionless bands is similar to the flat bands in Lieb or Kagome lattices, and coexists with the general band flattening caused by moire interference.