Chiral Kondo lattice in doped MoTe2/WSe2 bilayers

Superconductivity in Twisted WSe_{2} from Topology-Induced Quantum Fluctuations

Recently, superconductivity has been observed in twisted WSe_{2} moiré structures (Xia et al., Nature (London) 637, 833 (2025)NATUAS0028-083610.1038/s41586-024-08116-2; Guo et al., Nature (London) 637, 839 (2025)NATUAS0028-083610.1038/s41586-024-08381-1). Its transition temperature is high, reaching a few percent of the Fermi temperature scale. Here, we advance a mechanism for superconductivity based on the notion that electronic topology enables quantum fluctuations in a suitable regime of intermediate correlations. In this regime, the Coulomb interaction requires that an active topological flat band and nearby wider bands are considered together. Compact molecular orbitals arise, which give rise to quantum fluctuations through topology-dictated hybridization with the other molecular orbitals. The hybridization competes with the active flat band's natural tendency toward static electronic ordering, thereby weakening the latter; we link this effect with certain salient observations by experiments. Furthermore, the competition yields a quantum critical regime where quasiparticles are lost. The corresponding quantum critical fluctuations drive superconductivity. Broader implications and new connections among correlated materials platforms are discussed.

Emergent Chiral Metal near a Kondo Breakdown Quantum Phase Transition

The destruction of the Kondo effect in a local-moment metal can lead to a topological non-Fermi-liquid phase, dubbed fractionalized Fermi liquid, with spinon-type excitations and an emergent gauge field. We demonstrate that, if the latter displays an internal π-flux structure, a chiral heavy-fermion metal emerges near the Kondo-breakdown transition. Utilizing a parton mean-field theory describing the transition between a conventional heavy Fermi liquid and a U(1) fractionalized Fermi liquid, we find a novel intermediate phase near the transition whose emergent flux pattern spontaneously breaks both translation and time-reversal symmetries. This phase is an orbital antiferromagnet, and we derive a Landau-type theory which shows that such a phase generically emerges from a π-flux spin liquid. We discuss the relevance to pertinent experiments.

Ferromagnetic Semimetal and Charge-Density Wave Phases of Interacting Electrons in a Honeycomb Moiré Potential

The exploration of quantum phases in moiré systems has drawn intense experimental and theoretical efforts. The realization of honeycomb symmetry has been a recent focus. The combination of strong interaction and honeycomb symmetry can lead to exotic electronic states such as fractional Chern insulator, unconventional superconductor, and quantum spin liquid. Accurate computations in such systems, with reliable treatment of long-ranged Coulomb interaction and approaching large system sizes to extract thermodynamic phases, are mostly missing. We study the two-dimensional electron gas on a honeycomb moiré lattice at quarter filling, using the fixed-phase diffusion Monte Carlo method. The ground state phases of this important model are determined in the parameter regime relevant to current experiments. With increasing moiré potential, the system transitions from a paramagnetic metal to an itinerant ferromagnetic semimetal then a charge-density-wave insulator.

Anomalous Hall Effect and Quantum Criticality in Geometrically Frustrated Heavy Fermion Metals

Studies on the heavy-fermion pyrochlore iridate (Pr_{2}Ir_{2}O_{7}) point to the role of time-reversal-symmetry breaking in geometrically frustrated Kondo lattices. Here, we address the effect of Kondo coupling and chiral spin liquids in a J_{1}-J_{2} model on a square lattice and a model on a kagome lattice via a large-N method, based on a fermionic representation of the spin operators, and consider a new mechanism for anomalous Hall effect for the chiral phases. We calculate the anomalous Hall response for the chiral states of both the Kondo destroyed and Kondo screened phases. Across the quantum critical point, the anomalous Hall coefficient jumps when a sudden reconstruction of Fermi surfaces occurs. We discuss the implications of our results for the heavy-fermion pyrochlore iridate and propose an interface structure based on Kondo insulators to explore such effects further.

Stark effect and orbital hybridization of moiré interlayer excitons in the MoSe2/WSe2 heterobilayer

In this paper, we undertake a theoretical investigation into the effects of both in-plane and out-of-plane static electric fields on moiré interlayer excitons (IXs) within a WSe2/MoSe2 heterobilayer. We thoroughly analyze a wide range of properties pertaining to the IXs, including the binding energy, Stark shift, orbital hybridization, photoluminescence (PL) spectra, and radiative lifetime. Various factors influencing IX behavior, such as the dielectric environment, spacing separation, and moiré trap effects, are examined in detail. Our results demonstrate that the in-plane electric field leads to energy splitting between states with non-zero angular momentum, such as the 2p± dark states. Consequently, we analyze IX orbital hybridization, including hybrid Rydberg states like 1s, 2p±, and 2s. In contrast, we show that an out-of-plane electric field induced by a double-gate setup causes a quadratic Stark effect on the center of mass (COM) eigenenergies, leading to energy splitting of degenerate states and resulting in orbital hybridization of COM eigenvectors. Additionally, we demonstrate that a parallel electric field brightens the 2p± dark state through a one-photon PL process, due to the hybridization phenomena between s- and p-type Rydberg states. In short, our investigation is in great agreement with previous research and can assist experimenters in designing novel optoelectronic applications, such as on-chip electro-optic modulators and TeraHertz devices.

Emergent flat band and topological Kondo semimetal driven by orbital-selective correlations

Flat electronic bands are expected to show proportionally enhanced electron correlations, which may generate a plethora of novel quantum phases and unusual low-energy excitations. They are increasingly being pursued in d-electron-based systems with crystalline lattices that feature destructive electronic interference, where they are often topological. Such flat bands, though, are generically located far away from the Fermi energy, which limits their capacity to partake in the low-energy physics. Here we show that electron correlations produce emergent flat bands that are pinned to the Fermi energy. We demonstrate this effect within a Hubbard model, in the regime described by Wannier orbitals where an effective Kondo description arises through orbital-selective Mott correlations. Moreover, the correlation effect cooperates with symmetry constraints to produce a topological Kondo semimetal. Our results motivate a novel design principle for Weyl Kondo semimetals in a new setting, viz. d-electron-based materials on suitable crystal lattices, and uncover interconnections among seemingly disparate systems that may inspire fresh understandings and realizations of correlated topological effects in quantum materials and beyond.

Strong-Coupling Phases of Trions and Excitons in Electron-Hole Bilayers at Commensurate Densities

We introduce density imbalanced electron-hole bilayers at a commensurate 2:1 density ratio as a platform for realizing novel phases of electrons, excitons, and trions. Through the independently tunable carrier densities and interlayer spacing, competition between kinetic energy, intralayer repulsion, and interlayer attraction yields a rich phase diagram. By a combination of theoretical analysis and numerical calculation, we find a variety of strong-coupling phases in different parameter regions, including quantum crystals of electrons, excitons, and trions. We also propose an "electron-exciton supersolid" phase that features electron crystallization and exciton superfluidity simultaneously. The material realization and experimental signature of these phases are discussed in the context of semiconductor transition metal dichalcogenide bilayers.

Nature of the Unconventional Heavy-Fermion Kondo State in Monolayer CeSiI

CeSiI has been recently isolated in the ultrathin limit, establishing CeSiI as the first intrinsic two-dimensional van der Waals heavy-fermion material up to 85 K. We show that, due to the strong spin-orbit coupling, the local moments develop a multipolar real-space magnetic texture, leading to local pseudospins with a nearly vanishing net moment. To elucidate its Kondo-screened regime, we extract from first-principles the parameters of the Kondo lattice model describing this material. We develop a pseudofermion methodology in combination with ab initio calculations to reveal the nature of the heavy-fermion state in CeSiI. We analyze the competing magnetic interactions leading to an unconventional heavy-fermion order as a function of the magnetic exchange between the localized f-electrons and the strength of the Kondo coupling. Our results show that the magnetic exchange interactions promote an unconventional momentum-dependent Kondo-screened phase, establishing the nature of the heavy-fermion state observed in CeSiI.

Metal-Insulator Transition in a Semiconductor Heterobilayer Model

Transition metal dichalcogenide superlattices provide an exciting new platform for exploring and understanding a variety of phases of matter. The moiré continuum Hamiltonian, of two-dimensional jellium in a modulating potential, provides a fundamental model for such systems. Accurate computations with this model are essential for interpreting experimental observations and making predictions for future explorations. In this work, we combine two complementary quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) methods, phaseless auxiliary field quantum Monte Carlo and fixed-phase diffusion Monte Carlo, to study the ground state of this Hamiltonian. We observe a metal-insulator transition between a paramagnet and a 120° Néel ordered state as the moiré potential depth and the interaction strength are varied. We find significant differences from existing results by Hartree-Fock and exact diagonalization studies. In addition, we benchmark density-functional theory, and suggest an optimal hybrid functional which best approximates our QMC results.

Heavy fermions vs doped Mott physics in heterogeneous Ta-dichalcogenide bilayers

Controlling and understanding electron correlations in quantum matter is one of the most challenging tasks in materials engineering. In the past years a plethora of new puzzling correlated states have been found by carefully stacking and twisting two-dimensional van der Waals materials of different kind. Unique to these stacked structures is the emergence of correlated phases not foreseeable from the single layers alone. In Ta-dichalcogenide heterostructures made of a good metallic "1H"- and a Mott insulating "1T"-layer, recent reports have evidenced a cross-breed itinerant and localized nature of the electronic excitations, similar to what is typically found in heavy fermion systems. Here, we put forward a new interpretation based on first-principles calculations which indicates a sizeable charge transfer of electrons (0.4-0.6 e) from 1T to 1H layers at an elevated interlayer distance. We accurately quantify the strength of the interlayer hybridization which allows us to unambiguously determine that the system is much closer to a doped Mott insulator than to a heavy fermion scenario. Ta-based heterolayers provide therefore a new ground for quantum-materials engineering in the regime of heavily doped Mott insulators hybridized with metallic states at a van der Waals distance.

Spin Polarons and Ferromagnetism in Doped Dilute Moiré-Mott Insulators

Moiré heterostructures of transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) exhibit Mott-insulating behavior both at half filling as well as at fractional fillings, where electronic degrees of freedom form self-organized Wigner crystal states. An open question concerns magnetic states obtained by lifting the pseudospin-1/2 degeneracy of these states at lowest temperatures. While at half filling virtual hopping is expected to induce (weak) antiferromagnetic exchange interactions, these are strongly suppressed when considering dilute filling fractions. We argue that, instead, a small concentration of doped electrons leads to the formation of spin polarons, inducing ferromagnetic order at experimentally relevant temperatures, consistent with recently observed ferromagnetic states in moiré TMD systems. We predict explicit signatures of polaron formation in the magnetization profile.

Topological Superconductivity in Doped Magnetic Moiré Semiconductors

We show that topological superconductivity may emerge upon doping of transition metal dichalcogenide heterobilayers above an integer-filling magnetic state of the topmost valence moiré band. The effective attraction between charge carriers is generated by an electric p-wave Feshbach resonance arising from interlayer excitonic physics and has a tunable strength, which may be large. Together with the low moiré carrier densities reachable by gating, this robust attraction enables access to the long-sought p-wave BEC-BCS transition. The topological protection arises from an emergent time reversal symmetry occurring when the magnetic order and long wavelength magnetic fluctuations do not couple different valleys. The resulting topological superconductor features helical Majorana edge modes, leading to half-integer quantized spin-thermal Hall conductivity and to charge currents induced by circularly polarized light or other time-reversal symmetry-breaking fields.

Quantum criticality enabled by intertwined degrees of freedom

Strange metals appear in a wide range of correlated materials. Electronic localization-delocalization and the expected loss of quasiparticles characterize beyond-Landau metallic quantum critical points and the associated strange metals. Typical settings involve local spins. Systems that contain entwined degrees of freedom offer new platforms to realize unusual forms of quantum criticality. Here, we study the fate of an SU(4) spin-orbital Kondo state in a multipolar Bose-Fermi Kondo model, which provides an effective description of a multipolar Kondo lattice, using a renormalization-group method. We show that at zero temperature, a generic trajectory in the model's parameter space contains two quantum critical points, which are associated with the destruction of Kondo entanglement in the orbital and spin channels, respectively. Our asymptotically exact results reveal an overall phase diagram, provide the theoretical basis to understand puzzling recent experiments of a multipolar heavy fermion metal, and point to a means of designing different forms of quantum criticality and strange metallicity in a variety of strongly correlated systems.

Kondo Lattice Model in Magic-Angle Twisted Bilayer Graphene

We systematically study emergent Kondo lattice models from magic-angle twisted bilayer graphene using the topological heavy fermion representation. At the commensurate fillings, we demonstrate a series of symmetric strongly correlated metallic states driven by the hybridization between a triangular lattice of SU(8) local moments and delocalized fermions. In particular, a (fragile) topological Dirac Kondo semimetal can be realized, providing a potential explanation for the symmetry-preserving correlated state at ν=0. We further investigate the stability of the Dirac Kondo semimetal by constructing a quantum phase diagram showing the interplay between Kondo hybridization and magnetic correlation. The destruction of Kondo hybridization suggests that the magic-angle twisted bilayer graphene may be on the verge of a solid-state quantum simulator for novel magnetic orders on a triangular lattice. Experimental implications are also discussed.