Related Experiment Video
Updated: Nov 15, 2025

Fabricating van der Waals Heterostructures with Precise Rotational Alignment
Published on: July 5, 2019
The Impact of Interlayer Rotation on Thermal Transport Across Graphene/Hexagonal Boron Nitride van der Waals
Weijun Ren1, Yulou Ouyang1, Pengfei Jiang1
1Center for Phononics and Thermal Energy Science, China-EU Joint Lab for Nanophononics, School of Physics Science and Engineering, Tongji University, Shanghai 200092, People's Republic of China.
Abstract:
Graphene/hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) van der Waals (vdW) heterostructure has aroused great interest because of the unique Moiré pattern. In this study, we use molecular dynamics simulation to investigate the influence of the interlayer rotation angle θ on the interfacial thermal transport across graphene/h-BN heterostructure. The interfacial thermal conductance G of graphene/h-BN interface reaches 509 MW/(m2K) at 500 K without rotation, and it decreases monotonically with the increase of the rotation angle, exhibiting around 50% reduction of G with θ = 26.33°. The phonon transmission function reveals that G is dominantly contributed by the low-frequency phonons below 10 THz. Upon rotation, the surface fluctuation in the interfacial graphene layer is enhanced, and the transmission function for the low-frequency phonon is reduced with increasing θ, leading to the rotation angle-dependent G. This work uncovers the physical mechanisms for controlling interfacial thermal transport across vdW heterostructure via interlayer rotation.
Related Concept Videos
Hybridization of Atomic Orbitals I
π Electron Effects on Chemical Shift: Overview
Mechanism of heat transfer
Thermal Sigmatropic Reactions: Overview
Sigmatropic shifts are classified based on an order term [i, j ], where i and j indicate the number of atoms across which each end of the σ bond migrates. Below are examples of a [3,3] sigmatropic shift in 1,5-hexadiene, referred...
Spin–Spin Coupling: Three-Bond Coupling (Vicinal Coupling)
The extent of coupling depends on the C‑C bond length, the two H‑C‑C angles, any electron-withdrawing substituents, and the dihedral angle between the involved orbitals. The...
Structure of Benzene: Molecular Orbital Model

