Penn State team applies ‘magic angle’ graphene to acoustics

A team of Penn State researchers has designed an acoustic equivalent of magic-angle bilayer graphene. Two graphene sheets stacked on top of each other, called bilayer graphene, exhibit unique properties when one of the layers is twisted at a certain angle — a “magic” angle. The study of magic and other angle misalignments between two layers of material and their effects on material properties has been dubbed twistronics, a rapidly expanding field of condensed matter physics.

A visualization of the acoustic graphene array. Image by PSU

“Examining analogues of condensed matter physics concepts can give us new ideas and applications in acoustics,” said Yun Jing, associate professor of acoustics and biomedical engineering.