Pablo Jarillo-Herrero, the Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Physics at MIT, has been awarded the 2025 BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Basic Sciences, sharing the 400,000-euro prize with Allan MacDonald of the University of Texas at Austin. The award recognizes their pioneering work on “magic-angle” graphene, a discovery that laid the foundation for a new field of materials research and promises applications in superconductivity and beyond, tells MIT News.
The story began with MacDonald’s 2011 theoretical prediction that when two sheets of graphene, that is, a single layer of carbon atoms arranged in a honeycomb pattern, are stacked and rotated at a precise angle of about 1.1 degrees, the electronic interactions change dramatically. Seven years later, Jarillo-Herrero’s team delivered experimental proof of this “magic angle,” showing that twisted bilayer graphene can exhibit properties such as superconductivity, where electrons flow without resistance.
The BBVA Foundation described these findings as establishing both theoretical foundations and experimental validation of a new research area by controlling material behavior with rotation. That field, sometimes called twistronics, allows scientists to tune electronic properties of two-dimensional materials in ways previously thought impossible. Committee members highlighted impacts that extend from fundamental physics to potential future technologies, including energy-efficient electronics and quantum devices.
Jarillo-Herrero’s work has drawn strong international attention within the physics community. MacDonald himself has remarked that the experimental confirmation was almost science fiction, given the precision needed to align atom-thin layers. The collaborative research praised by the BBVA Foundation demonstrates how a simple geometric twist can unlock rich and unexpected behaviors in quantum materials.
The BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Awards celebrate research that expands human understanding and has the potential to influence technology and society. Jarillo-Herrero’s recognition adds to a legacy of MIT faculty honored by this prize for advancing basic sciences.