Resonant tunneling and the quasiparticle lifetime in graphene/boron nitride/graphene heterostructures

Abstract

Tunneling of quasiparticles between two nearly-aligned graphene sheets produces resonant current-voltage characteristics because of the quasi-exact conservation of in-plane momentum. We claim that, in this regime, vertical transport in graphene/boron nitride/graphene heterostructures carries precious information on electron-electron interactions and the quasiparticle spectral function of the two-dimensional electron system in graphene. We present extensive microscopic calculations of the tunneling spectra with the inclusion of quasiparticle lifetime effects and elucidate the range of parameters (inter-layer bias, temperature, twist angle, and gate voltage) under which electron-electron interaction physics emerges.