Interview with Allan MacDonald, 18th Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Basic Sciences

The BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Basic Sciences has gone in this eigtheens edition to Allan H. MacDonald and Pablo Jarillo-Herrero for pioneering the theoretical foundation and the discovery of strongly correlated electrons in stacked twisted monolayer materials. In 2011, MacDonald predicted an unusual property of graphene, a material composed of a single layer of carbon atoms. By his calculations, on rotating one graphene sheet on top of another to a very precise angle, the electrons (which in conventional materials move at thousands of kilometres per second) would lose velocity, coming practically to a standstill. This dramatic slowdown raised the possibility of huge changes in the graphene’s behavior of a nature MacDonald could barely imagine when his results first appeared in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The researcher gave the name “magic angle” to this 1.1º misfit between the graphene layers. Seven years later, Jarillo-Herrero and his team provided the experimental confirmation of this prediction. His pioneering work provided the theoretical grounding of a field now known as twistronics, where superconductivity, magnetism and other properties are achieved by rotating novel two-dimensional materials such as graphene, with potential technological applications. Questions: 00:00 Introduction 00:14 What is the ‘magic angle’ at which two graphene layers exhibit novel properties, and what was your theoretical prediction as to how it could change the behaviour of this material? 00:46 Since the theoretical prediction you made, what have been the major milestones in your field? 01:22 What applications do you hope your research will eventually lead to? More information at: https://www.frontiersofknowledgeawards-fbbva.es/noticias/18th-edition-frontiers-of-knowledge-award-basic-sciences-allan-macdonald-pablo-jarillo-herrero-magic-angle-graphene-twistronics/ #graphene #twistronics #basicscience