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Register a new userContinuous Mott transition in semiconductor moire superlattices
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The evolution of a Landau Fermi liquid into a nonmagnetic Mott insulator with increasing electronic interactions is one of the most puzzling quantum phase transitions in physics. The vicinity of the transition is believed to host exotic states of matter such as quantum spin liquids, exciton condensates and unconventional superconductivity. Semiconductor moire materials realize a highly controllable Hubbard model simulator on a triangular lattice, providing a unique opportunity to drive a metal-insulator transition (MIT) via continuous tuning of the electronic interactions. Here, by electrically tuning the effective interaction strength in MoTe2/WSe2 moire superlattices, we observe a continuous MIT at a fixed filling of one electron per unit cell. The existence of quantum criticality is supported by the scaling behavior of the resistance, a continuously vanishing charge-gap as the critical point is approached from the insulating side, and a diverging quasiparticle effective mass from the metallic side. We also observe a smooth evolution of the low-temperature magnetic susceptibility across the MIT and find no evidence of long-range magnetic order down to ~ 5% of the Curie-Weiss temperature. The results signal an abundance of low-energy spinful excitations on the insulating side that is further corroborated by the presence of the Pomeranchuk effect on the metallic side. Our results are consistent with the universal critical theory of a continuous MIT from a Landau Fermi liquid to a nonmagnetic Mott insulator in two dimensions.
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We study interaction-induced Mott insulators, and their topological properties in a 1D non-Hermitian strongly-correlated spinful fermionic superlattice system with either nonreciprocal hopping or complex-valued interaction. For the nonreciprocal hopping case, the low-energy neutral excitation spectrum is sensitive to boundary conditions, which is a manifestation of the non-Hermitian skin effect. However, unlike the single-particle case, particle density of strongly correlated system does not suffer from the non-Hermitian skin effect due to the Pauli exclusion principle and repulsive interactions. Moreover, the anomalous boundary effect occurs due to the interplay of nonreciprocal hopping, superlattice potential, and strong correlations, where some in-gap modes, for both the neutral and charge excitation spectra, show no edge excitations defined via only the right eigenvectors. We show that these edge excitations of the in-gap states can be correctly characterized by only biorthogonal eigenvectors. Furthermore, the topological Mott phase, with gapless particle excitations around boundaries, exists even for the purely imaginary-valued interaction, where the continuous quantum Zeno effect leads to the effective on-site repulsion between two-component fermions.
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We present a systematic classification and analysis of possible pairing instabilities in graphene-based moire superlattices. Motivated by recent experiments on twisted double-bilayer graphene showing signs of triplet superconductivity, we analyze both singlet and triplet pairing separately, and describe how these two channels behave close to the limit where the system is invariant under separate spin rotations in the two valleys, realizing an SU(2)$_+$ $times$ SU(2)$_-$ symmetry. Further, we discuss the conditions under which singlet and triplet can mix via two nearly degenerate transitions, and how the different pairing states behave when an external magnetic field is applied. The consequences of the additional microscopic or emergent approximate symmetries relevant for superconductivity in twisted bilayer graphene and ABC trilayer graphene on hexagonal boron nitride are described in detail. We also analyze which of the pairing states can arise in mean-field theory and study the impact of corrections coming from ferromagnetic fluctuations. For instance, we show that, close to the parameters of mean-field theory, a nematic mixed singlet-triplet state emerges. Our study illustrates that graphene superlattices provide a rich platform for exotic superconducting states, and allow for the admixture of singlet and triplet pairing even in the absence of spin-orbit coupling.
We formulate a fracton-elasticity duality for twisted moire superlattices, taking into account that they are incommensurate crystals with dissipative phason dynamics. From a dual tensor-gauge formulation, as compared to standard crystals, we identify twice the number of conserved charges that describe topological lattice defects, namely, disclinations and a new type of defect that we dub discompressions. The key implication of these conservation laws is that both glide and climb motions of lattice dislocations are suppressed, indicating that dislocation networks may become exceptionally stable. Our results also apply to other planar incommensurate crystals and quasicrystals.
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