English

Interference-Enhanced Large Electron-Phonon Coupling from Raman-active Breathing Modes in Moiré Semiconductors

Superconductivity 2026-07-13 v1

Abstract

Superconductivity was recently observed in twisted WSe2 and MoTe2, raising a central question: is the pairing driven by electronic correlations, by phonons, or by both? Answering it requires determining the electron-phonon coupling (EPC) in these moir\'e semiconductors, whose calculation in realistic supercells of thousands of atoms lies beyond the reach of direct first-principles methods. Here we combine filling-dependent Raman spectroscopy with machine-learning first-principles calculations to obtain the EPC mode by mode in supercells of up to tens of thousands of atoms. Raman reveals only a few moir\'e phonons whose frequencies shift strongly with filling; we trace this to an interference selection rule: a phonon couples strongly only when its displacement texture matches the static lattice-reconstruction pattern, and is otherwise suppressed by destructive interference. The rule selects the low- and high-frequency breathing modes seen in Raman and makes the coupling peak at large twist angles, near those at which superconductivity appears. Lattice-reconstruction interference thus emerges as an organizing principle for moir\'e EPC, pointing to a substantial, potentially dominant, phonon contribution to large-angle pairing.

Cite

@article{arxiv.2607.11425,
  title  = {Interference-Enhanced Large Electron-Phonon Coupling from Raman-active Breathing Modes in Moiré Semiconductors},
  author = {Ning Mao and Shaozheng Wang and Cheng Xu and Xumin Chang and Kenji Watanabe and Takashi Taniguchi and Claudia Felser and Shengwei Jiang and Yang Zhang},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2607.11425},
  year   = {2026}
}
R2 v1 2026-07-22T20:38:33.831Z