Gate-tunable heavy fermions in a moiré Kondo lattice

ORAL · Invited

Abstract

Moiré materials provide a highly tunable platform for exploring strongly correlated electron phenomena and topological physics. A Mott insulator with local magnetic moments has been realized in semiconductor moiré materials at half-filling of the moiré band. In this talk, I will describe the realization of a synthetic Kondo lattice in MoTe2/WSe2 moiré bilayers, where the MoTe2 layer is tuned to a Mott insulating state, supporting a triangular moiré lattice of local moments and the WSe2 layer is doped with itinerant conduction carriers. We observe heavy fermions with a large Fermi surface below the Kondo temperature and the destruction of the heavy fermions by an external magnetic field with an abrupt decrease of the Fermi surface size and quasiparticle mass. We also observe a Chern state at the boundary between the light and heavy fermions. Finally, I will demonstrate the emergence of ferromagnetism from a density-tuned Kondo destruction at zero magnetic field.

Publication: 1. W. Zhao, B. Shen, Z. Tao, Z. Han, K. Kang, K. Watanabe, T. Taniguchi, K. F. Mak, J. Shan, "Gate-tunable heavy fermions in a moiré Kondo lattice", Nature 616, 61-65 (2023)
2. W. Zhao*, B. Shen*, Z. Tao*, S. Kim, P. Knüppel, Z. Han, Y. Zhang, K. Watanabe, T. Taniguchi, D. Chowdhury, J. Shan, K. F. Mak, "Emergence of ferromagnetism at the onset of moiré Kondo breakdown", Nature Physics (2024), https://www.nature.com/articles/s41567-024-02636-4

Presenters

  • Wenjin Zhao

    Cornell University

Authors

  • Wenjin Zhao

    Cornell University

  • Bowen Shen

    Cornell University

  • Zui Tao

    Cornell University

  • Sunghoon Kim

    Cornell University

  • Patrick Knüppel

    Cornell University

  • Zhongdong Han

    Cornell University

  • Yichi Zhang

    Cornell University

  • Kenji Watanabe

    National Institute for Materials Science

  • Takashi Taniguchi

    National Institute for Materials Science

  • Debanjan Chowdhury

    Cornell University

  • Debanjan Chowdhury

    Cornell University

  • Jie Shan

    Cornell University

  • Kin Fai Mak

    Cornell University

  • Kaifei Kang

    Cornell University