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Updated: May 25, 2025

Fabricating van der Waals Heterostructures with Precise Rotational Alignment
Published on: July 5, 2019
Correlated states controlled by a tunable van Hove singularity in moiré WSe2 bilayers
Patrick Knüppel1, Jiacheng Zhu1, Yiyu Xia1
1Laboratory of Atomic and Solid-State Physics and School of Applied and Engineering Physics, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA.
Abstract:
Twisted transition metal dichalcogenide (TMD) bilayers have enabled the discovery of superconductivity, ferromagnetism, correlated insulators, and a series of new topological phases of matter. However, the connection between these electronic phases of matter and the underlying band structure singularities has remained largely unexplored. Here, combining magnetic circular dichroism and exciton sensing measurements, we investigate the influence of a van Hove singularity (vHS) on the correlated phases in bilayer WSe2 with twist angle between 2 and 3 degrees. By tuning the vHS across the Fermi level using electric and magnetic fields, we observe Stoner ferromagnetism below moiré lattice filling one and Chern insulators at filling one. The experimental observations are supported by the continuum model band structure calculations. Our results highlight the prospect of engineering electronic phases of matter in moiré materials by tunable van Hove singularities.
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