Electrically tunable high-Chern-number quasiflat bands in twisted antiferromagnetic topological insulators
Abstract: Isolated flat bands with significantly quenched kinetic energy of electrons could give rise to exotic strongly correlated states from electron-electron interactions. More intriguingly, the interplay between topology and flat bands can further lead to richer physical phenomena, which have attracted much interest. Here, taking advantage of the recently proposed intertwined Dirac states induced from the anisotropic coupling between the top and bottom surface states of an antiferromagnetic topological insulator thin film, we show the emergence of a high-Chern-number (quasi)flat-band state through moir\'e engineering of the surface states. Remarkably, the flat bands are isolated from other bands and located near the Fermi level. Furthermore, topological phase transitions between trivial and nontrivial flat-band states can be driven by tuning the out-of-plane electric field. Our work not only proposes a new scheme to realize high-Chern-number flat-band states, but also highlights the versatility of the intertwined Dirac-cone states.
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