Emergence of Interfacial Polarons from Electron-Phonon Coupling in Graphene/h-BN van der Waals Heterostructures.

van der Waals heterostructures, vertical stacks of layered materials, offer new opportunities for novel quantum phenomena which are absent in their constituent components. Here we report the emergence of polaron quasiparticles at the interface of graphene/hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) heterostructures. Using nanospot angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy, we observe zone-corner replicas of h-BN valence band maxima, with energy spacing coincident with the highest phonon energy of the heterostructure, an indication of Fröhlich polaron formation due to forward-scattering electron-phonon coupling.