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