Floquet engineering of interlayer couplings: Tuning the magic angle of twisted bilayer graphene at the exit of a waveguide

Abstract: We introduce a new approach that allows one complete control over the modulation of the effective twist angle change in few-layer van der Waals heterostructures by irradiating them with longitudinal waves of light at the end of a waveguide. As a specific application, we consider twisted bilayer graphene and show that one can tune the magic angles to be either larger or smaller, allowing in-situ experimental control of the phase diagram of this and other related materials. A waveguide allows one to circumvent the free-space constraints on the absence of longitudinal electric field components of light. We propose to place twisted bilayer graphene at a specific location at the exit of a waveguide, such that it is subjected to purely longitudinal components of a transverse magnetic modes (TM) wave.