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Updated: Jun 9, 2025

Electric-field Control of Electronic States in WS2 Nanodevices by Electrolyte Gating
Published on: April 12, 2018
Superconductivity in twisted bilayer WSe2
Yiyu Xia1, Zhongdong Han2, Kenji Watanabe3
1School of Applied and Engineering Physics, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA. yx579@cornell.edu.
Abstract:
Moiré materials have enabled the realization of flat electron bands and quantum phases that are driven by the strong correlations associated with flat bands1-4. Superconductivity has been observed, but only in graphene moiré materials5-9. The absence of robust superconductivity in moiré materials beyond graphene, such as semiconductor moiré materials4, has remained a mystery and challenged our current understanding of superconductivity in flat bands. Here we report the observation of robust superconductivity in both 3.5° and 3.65° twisted bilayer tungsten diselenide (WSe2), which hosts a hexagonal moiré lattice10,11. Superconductivity emerges near half-band filling and zero external displacement fields. The optimal superconducting transition temperature is about 200 mK in both cases and constitutes about 1-2% of the effective Fermi temperature; the latter is comparable to the value in high-temperature cuprate superconductors12 and suggests strong pairing. The superconductor borders on two distinct metals below and above half-band filling; it undergoes a continuous transition to a correlated insulator by tuning the external displacement field. The observed superconductivity on the verge of Coulomb-induced charge localization suggests roots in strong electron correlations12,13.
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