English

Tunable spin and valley excitations of correlated insulators in $\Gamma$-valley moir\'e bands

Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics 2023-10-24 v3 Strongly Correlated Electrons

Abstract

Moir\'e superlattices formed from transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) have been shown to support a variety of quantum electronic phases that are highly tunable using applied electromagnetic fields. While the valley character of the low-energy states dramatically affects optoelectronic properties in the constituent TMDs, this degree of freedom has yet to be fully explored in moir\'e systems. Here, we establish twisted double bilayer WSe2_2 as an experimental platform to study electronic correlations within Γ\Gamma-valley moir\'e bands. Through a combination of local and global electronic compressibility measurements, we identify charge-ordered phases at multiple integer and fractional moir\'e band fillings ν\nu. By measuring the magnetic field dependence of their energy gaps and the chemical potential upon doping, we reveal spin-polarized ground states with novel spin polaron quasiparticle excitations. In addition, an applied displacement field allows us to realize a new mechanism of metal-insulator transition at ν=1\nu = -1 driven by tuning between Γ\Gamma- and KK-valley moir\'e bands. Together, our results demonstrate control over both the spin and valley character of the correlated ground and excited states in this system.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2206.10631,
  title  = {Tunable spin and valley excitations of correlated insulators in $\Gamma$-valley moir\'e bands},
  author = {Benjamin A. Foutty and Jiachen Yu and Trithep Devakul and Carlos R. Kometter and Yang Zhang and Kenji Watanabe and Takashi Taniguchi and Liang Fu and Benjamin E. Feldman},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2206.10631},
  year   = {2023}
}