Quantum melting of generalized electron crystal in twisted bilayer MoSe2
Abstract
Electrons can form an ordered solid crystal phase ascribed to the interplay between Coulomb repulsion and kinetic energy. Tuning these energy scales can drive a phase transition from electron solid to liquid, i.e. melting of Wigner crystal. Generalized Wigner crystals (GWCs) pinned to moire superlattices have been reported by optical and scanning-probe-based methods. Using transport measurements to investigate GWCs is vital to a complete characterization, however, still poses a significant challenge due to difficulties in making reliable electrical contacts. Here, we report the electrical transport detection of GWCs at fractional fillings nu = 2/5, 1/2, 3/5, 2/3, 8/9, 10/9, and 4/3 in twisted bilayer MoSe2. We further observe that these GWCs undergo continuous quantum melting transitions to liquid phases by tuning doping density, magnetic and displacement fields, manifested by quantum critical scaling behaviors. Our findings establish twisted bilayer MoSe2 as a novel system to study strongly correlated states of matter and their quantum phase transitions.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2505.16681,
title = {Quantum melting of generalized electron crystal in twisted bilayer MoSe2},
author = {Qi Jun Zong and Haolin Wang and Qi Zhang and Xinle Cheng and Yangchen He and Qiaoling Xu and Ammon Fischer and Kenji Watanabe and Takashi Taniguchi and Daniel A. Rhodes and Lede Xian and Dante M. Kennes and Angel Rubio and Geliang Yu and Lei Wang},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2505.16681},
year = {2025}
}