Allan MacDonald Wins Kavli Prize in Nanoscience

"Twistronics introduced a new paradigm in nanoscience and opened a powerful new platform for exploring interaction-driven quantum materials," said Mari-Ann Einarsrud, chair of the Kavli Prize Committee in Nanoscience.

In 2004, scientists discovered a simple way to make atomically thin sheets of graphene, composed of just a single layer of carbon atoms. Since then, physicists have been working to understand the properties of this two-dimensional material and its potential uses in a variety of technologies. Andrei pioneered research showing how geometric control of two-dimensional materials that were layered and twisted could change material properties. Her research innovations, singled out by a journal as a contender for "scientific breakthrough of the year" in 2009, were set in a broader theoretical framework by MacDonald.

MacDonald wondered what would happen if you stacked two atom-thin sheets of graphene on top of each other, but with a precise twist so the atoms in one sheet didn't perfectly line up with atoms on the other. Using high-powered computers at the Texas Advanced Computing Center, he and his team, including then-postdoctoral scientist Rafi Bistritzer, predicted that unusual electrical properties would result from rotating two-dimensional sheets of graphene at the specific angle of 1.1 degrees, later termed the "magic angle."

Jarillo-Herrero later confirmed experimentally that the magic angle unlocked superconductivity, the transmission of electricity without loss. In 2018 he and his colleagues published two papers on twistronics in the same issue of Nature.

Honoring groundbreaking scientific discovery, the recipients of the 2026 Kavli Prizes in the fields of astrophysics, nanoscience and neuroscience were all announced today, with 10 scientists from three fields with nine different nationalities honored for their research that has broadened human "understanding of the big, the small and the complex." The laureates in each field will share $1 million. They will be awarded the Kavli Prize in Oslo, Norway, in September.