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Updated: May 31, 2025

Fabricating van der Waals Heterostructures with Precise Rotational Alignment
Published on: July 5, 2019
Moiré-driven topological electronic crystals in twisted graphene
Ruiheng Su1,2, Dacen Waters3,4, Boran Zhou5
1Quantum Matter Institute, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
Abstract:
In a dilute two-dimensional electron gas, Coulomb interactions can stabilize the formation of a Wigner crystal1-3. Although Wigner crystals are topologically trivial, it has been predicted that electrons in a partially filled band can break continuous translational symmetry and time-reversal symmetry spontaneously, resulting in a type of topological electron crystal known as an anomalous Hall crystal4-11. Here we report signatures of a generalized version of the anomalous Hall crystal in twisted bilayer-trilayer graphene, whose formation is driven by the moiré potential. The crystal forms at a band filling of one electron per four moiré unit cells (ν = 1/4) and quadruples the unit-cell area, coinciding with an integer quantum anomalous Hall effect. The Chern number of the state is exceptionally tunable, and it can be switched reversibly between +1 and -1 by electric and magnetic fields. Several other topological electronic crystals arise in a modest magnetic field, originating from ν = 1/3, 1/2, 2/3 and 3/2. The quantum geometry of the interaction-modified bands is likely to be very different from that of the original parent band, which enables possible future discoveries of correlation-driven topological phenomena.
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