Heavy-Fermion Physics in a Transition Metal Dichalcogenide Moiré Heterostructure

We propose a realization of heavy-fermion physics in suitably-designed trilayer transition metal dichalcogenide heterostructures, which enable gate-tuning across the heavy-fermion critical point in a single device. The trilayer consists of an aligned WX₂ bilayer on a MoX₂ monolayer with a small relative twist angle. Using dual gates, the Fermi level in the top WX₂ layer, which experiences weak moiré modulation, can be placed between the lower and upper Hubbard sub-bands of the strongly modulated narrow-band in the lower WX₂ layer. Electrons in the metallic and insulating layers are analogous to the d- and f-electrons in heavy-fermion materials, and their spins have an antiferromagnetic Kondo coupling due to interlayer hybridization. We calculate the leading high-temperature Kondo corrections to the resistivity and use these to estimate where Kondo physics is observable. We also predict characteristic fingerprints of possible heavy Fermi liquid to quantum spin liquid phase transition and other quantum criticality scenarios in transport, capacitance and optical measurements.