Flat Bands in Magic-Angle Bilayer Photonic Crystals at Small Twists

Abstract

The new physics of magic-angle twisted bilayer graphene (TBG) motivated extensive studies of flat bands hosted by moire superlattices in van der Waals structures, inspiring the investigations into their photonic counterparts with potential applications including Bose-Einstein condensation. However, correlation between photonic flat bands and bilayer photonic moire systems remains unexplored, impeding further development of moire photonics. In this work, we formulate a coupled-mode theory for low-angle twisted bilayer honeycomb photonic crystals as a close analogy of TBG, discovering magic-angle photonic flat bands with a non-Anderson-type localization. Moreover, the interlayer separation constitutes a convenient degree of freedom in tuning photonic moire bands without high pressure. A phase diagram is constructed to correlate the twist angle and separation dependencies to the photonic magic angles. Our findings reveal a salient correspondence between fermionic and bosonic moire systems and pave the avenue toward novel applications through advanced photonic band or state engineering.