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    Physical Properties of an Aperiodic Monotile with Graphene-like Features, Chirality, and Zero Modes

    Justin Schirmann1,*,†, Selma Franca1,*,‡, Felix Flicker2,3,§, and Adolfo G. Grushin1,∥

    • 1Université Grenoble Alpes, CNRS, Grenoble INP, Institut Néel, 38000 Grenoble, France
    • 2School of Physics and Astronomy, Cardiff University, The Parade, Cardiff CF24 3AA, United Kingdom
    • 3School of Physics, H. H. Wills Physics Laboratory, Tyndall Avenue, Bristol BS8 1TL, United Kingdom

    • *These authors contributed equally to this work.
    • †justin.schirmann@neel.cnrs.fr
    • ‡selma.franca@neel.cnrs.fr
    • §flicker@cardiff.ac.uk
    • ∥adolfo.grushin@neel.cnrs.fr

    Phys. Rev. Lett. 132, 086402 – Published 22 February, 2024

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.132.086402

    Abstract

    The discovery of the Hat, an aperiodic monotile, has revealed novel mathematical aspects of aperiodic tilings. However, the physics of particles propagating in such a setting remains unexplored. In this work we study spectral and transport properties of a tight-binding model defined on the Hat. We find that (i) the spectral function displays striking similarities to that of graphene, including sixfold symmetry and Dirac-like features; (ii) unlike graphene, the monotile spectral function is chiral, differing for its two enantiomers; (iii) the spectrum has a macroscopic number of degenerate states at zero energy; (iv) when the magnetic flux per plaquette (ϕ) is half of the flux quantum, zero modes are found localized around the reflected “anti-hats”; and (v) its Hofstadter spectrum is periodic in ϕ, unlike for other quasicrystals. Our work serves as a basis to study wave and electron propagation in possible experimental realizations of the Hat, which we suggest.

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