Pablo Jarillo-Herrero wins Kavli Prize in Nanoscience | MIT Information

MIT professor of physics Pablo Jarillo-Herrero is amongst 10 researchers worldwide to obtain this year’s prestigious Kavli Prize. 

Jarillo-Herrero is co-recipient of the 2026 Kavli Prize in Nanoscience “for foundational work that established the field of twistronics.” His co-recipients are professors Eva Y. Andrei at Rutgers University and Allan MacDonald from the University of Texas at Austin.

These three physicists are being honored for the theoretical basis and experimental validation of a brand new discipline of “twistronics,” the place superconductivity, magnetism, and different properties could be obtained by rotating two-dimensional supplies comparable to graphene to a “magic angle.”

A partnership among the many Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, the Norwegian Ministry of Education and Research, and the Kavli Foundation, the Kavli Prizes are awarded each two years to “honor scientists for breakthroughs in astrophysics, nanoscience and neuroscience that transform our understanding of the big, the small and the complex.” The laureates in every discipline will share $1 million.

“Pablo’s groundbreaking research has once again been given well-deserved recognition,” says Nergis Mavalvala, dean of the MIT School of Science and the Curtis and Kathleen Marble Professor of Astrophysics. “Pablo and his co-recipients have pioneered twistronics, very fundamental scientific research that has opened up a new field with myriad possibilities for novel quantum materials.”

In 2009, utilizing scanning tunneling microscopy and spectroscopy on graphene, mostly discovered as a single layer of carbon atoms organized in hexagons resembling a honeycomb construction, Andrei and her analysis group demonstrated that small variations in twist angle profoundly modified the digital construction. This demonstration — that geometric management, quite than chemical composition, might modify a fabric’s digital construction — represented a elementary advance in supplies design and arguably launched the sphere now often known as “twistronics.”

In 2011, MacDonald quantitatively defined the emergence of this digital construction by geometries at discrete magic angles. This framework has since change into the theoretical basis of what are often known as moiré supplies, and has guided subsequent experimental and theoretical developments throughout a variety of twisted and layered programs. 

In 2018, Jarillo-Herrero’s group noticed correlated insulating phases and superconductivity in magic-angle twisted bilayer graphene units. The ensuing platform, “combining atomic-scale structural simplicity with electronic tunability, has enabled systematic investigations has had broad and lasting impact across nanoscience and quantum material research,” based on the Kavli Prize quotation.

“It was a big surprise, because the technique we used, though conceptually straightforward, was hard to pull off in the lab,” mentioned Jarillo-Herrero lately. He can be the Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Physics at MIT and a member of the Research Laboratory of Electronics. 

“I’m humbled and incredibly honored to be sharing this award with [Andrei and MacDonald],” Jarillo-Herrero famous in an essay describing his journey to the Kavli Prize. “I want to also emphasize that this award honors fundamental physics research in nanoscience. It is incredibly important for society to continue to support fundamental research: Although it often doesn’t have a direct near-term application, in the long run it happens to be the most transformative and impactful in society.”

“Pablo’s research has helped spark a revolution in condensed matter physics and nanoscience, inspiring physicists worldwide to explore superconductivity and other emergent phenomena in engineered quantum materials. This work could potentially lead to the creation of superconductors at room temperature, which would would have an enormous technological impact,” says Deepto Chakrabarty, physics division head and William A. M. Burden Professor in Astrophysics.

Jarillo-Herrero’s win brings the variety of all-time MIT school recipients of the Kavli Prize to 9. Prior winners embrace Nancy Kanwisher in neuroscience (2024), Bob Langer in nanoscience (2024), Sara Seager in astrophysics (2024), Rainer Weiss in astrophysics (2016), Alan Guth in astrophysics (2014), Mildred Dresselhaus in nanoscience (2012), Ann Graybiel in neuroscience (2012), and Jane Luu in astrophysics (2012).