Twistronics founders win 2026 Kavli Prize in Nanoscience

On June 10, the work of Eva Y. Andrei, Pablo Jarillo-Herrero, and Allan H. MacDonald was recognized with the biennial Kavli Prize in Nanoscience. The three physicists each played a pivotal role in establishing the field of Twistronics.

Named with a portmanteau of twist and electronics, the field of Twistronics takes advantage of the unique electrical properties imbued in a 2D material when multiple atomically thin layers are stacked at a specific angle. Researchers in Andrei’s lab first observed the phenomenon in 2009 while experimenting with graphene. The discovery was serendipitous. “We were looking for something totally different,” Andrei says.

Graphene had only recently been identified, and Andrei’s team of researchers was interested in exploring how electrons interacted with the material. Their first experiments with single-layer graphene raised interesting questions; they needed more graphene to find answers. But when a collaborator sent Andrei another sample to work with, “for some reason she grew it on nickel instead of copper,” Andrei says. “Unbeknownst to us, when you grow it on nickel, you grow twisted, bilayer graphene.”

When the scientists examined the sample via scanning tunneling microscopy, they were shocked to see a “huge moiré pattern,” a geometric design, created by the offset graphene sheets, Andrei says. The scientists were even more surprised to realize that the offset angle creating the patterns also changed how electrons behave in the material (Nature 2010, DOI: 10.1038/nphys1463). Essentially, the materials properties of graphene can be controlled by the angle at which multiple sheets are stacked.

When MacDonald saw the early results produced by Andrei’s team, he was inspired to come up with a mathematical theory to explain the observed phenomenon. Ultimately, his team discovered that the angle between layers of 2D materials “actually determines the period of the moiré” pattern and specific “magic twist angles” cause specific materials properties (Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 2011, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1108174108). For example, at about 1°, electrons gather at the same energy level, priming the material for superconductivity. Later, his team showed that other 2D materials will exhibit similarly desirable properties when twisted (Phys. Rev. Lett. 2019, DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.122.086402).

Finally, in 2018, Jarillo-Herrero expanded on these discoveries and reported a twisted graphene material that was superconductive at 1.7 K, a temperature excruciatingly frigid to humans but warm for superconductivity (Nature 2018, DOI: 10.1038/nature26160).

In the Kavli Prize press release, Mari-Ann Einarsrud, chair of the 2026 Kavli Prize Committee in Nanoscience, says, “Twistronics introduced a new paradigm in nanoscience and opened a powerful new platform for exploring interaction-driven quantum materials.”

Four other researchers were awarded the Kavli Prize in Neuroscience “for the discovery of local protein translation in neurons and establishing its importance for brain development and plasticity.” And this year, the Kavli Prize in Astrophysics was awarded to three researchers “for uncovering the fossil evidence of past mergers proving that the Milky Way galaxy was built through hierarchical accretion.”

Each of the scientists will receive a gold medal and a share of the $1 million honorarium awarded for each of the three prizes.