Magic without twisting

Strongly correlated phases including superconductivity have been recently observed in moiré materials, notably in twisted multilayer graphene. The electrons in moiré superlattices are strongly interacting because flat bands emerge in the presence of a moiré superlattice. Now, in two papers, Young and coworkers report that even in the absence of a moiré superlattice the same correlated magnetic and superconducting phases occur in rhombohedral trilayer graphene. These correlations are linked to van Hove singularities at which the density of states diverges — emulating a moire flat band. The results will facilitate future theoretical and experimental studies on the mechanism behind the correlated phases in a system simpler than moiré materials.