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Twistronics Founders Awarded 2026 Kavli Prize in Nanoscience

The award recognizes work showing that small rotations of stacked two‑dimensional layers produce 'magic' angles that create flat electronic bands which enable superconductivity.

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Canadian physicist Allan Hugh MacDonald has just won the Kavli prize in nano-science. He works at the University of Texas in the United States. Photo courtesy of The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters
Jarillo-Herrero is co-recipient of the 2026 Kavli Prize in Nanoscience.

Overview

  • The Kavli Prize announced Wednesday, June 10, 2026, named Eva Y. Andrei, Allan H. MacDonald and Pablo Jarillo‑Herrero co‑recipients for the experimental and theoretical founding of twistronics.
  • In 2009 Andrei’s lab used scanning tunneling microscopy to discover large moiré patterns in twisted bilayer graphene and found that tiny changes in twist angle strongly altered electron behavior.
  • Allan MacDonald provided the theoretical framework in 2011 that identified discrete 'magic' twist angles near one degree that produce flat electronic bands and strengthen electron–electron interactions.
  • Pablo Jarillo‑Herrero’s 2018 experiments showed that magic‑angle twisted bilayer graphene can host correlated insulating states and superconductivity at about 1.7 kelvin.
  • The three laureates will share a $1 million honorarium and gold medals, and the prize frames twistronics as a new platform for designing quantum materials and guiding efforts to find higher‑temperature superconductors.