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Stripe phases in WSe2/WS2 moiré superlattices

Nature Materials volume 20, pages 940–944 (2021)Cite this article

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Abstract

Stripe phases, in which the rotational symmetry of charge density is spontaneously broken, occur in many strongly correlated systems with competing interactions1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11. However, identifying and studying such stripe phases remains challenging. Here we uncover stripe phases in WSe2/WS2 moiré superlattices by combining optical anisotropy and electronic compressibility measurements. We find strong electronic anisotropy over a large doping range peaked at 1/2 filling of the moiré superlattice. The 1/2 state is incompressible and assigned to an insulating stripe crystal phase. Wide-field imaging reveals domain configurations with a preferential alignment along the high-symmetry axes of the moiré superlattice. Away from 1/2 filling, we observe additional stripe crystals at commensurate filling 1/4, 2/5 and 3/5, and compressible electronic liquid crystal states at incommensurate fillings. Our results demonstrate that two-dimensional semiconductor moiré superlattices are a highly tunable platform from which to study the stripe phases and their interplay with other symmetry breaking ground states.

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Fig. 1: Optical detection of electronic anisotropy.
Fig. 2: Electronic anisotropy in WSe2/WS2 moiré superlattices.
Fig. 3: Temperature dependence.
Fig. 4: Stripe domains at ν = 1/2.

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The data that support the findings of this study are available within the paper and its Supplementary Information. Source data are provided with this paper.

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Acknowledgements

We thank E.-A. Kim for fruitful discussions. This work was supported by the US Department of Energy, Office of Science, Basic Energy Sciences, under award number DE-SC0019481 (growth of WSe2 crystals and optical characterization), the US Army Research Office under grant number W911NF-17-1-0605 (device fabrication), the US Office of Naval Research under award number N00014-18-1-2368 (capacitance measurements) and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research under award number FA9550-20-1-0219 (optical microscopy). The growth of hBN crystals was supported by the Elemental Strategy Initiative of MEXT, Japan and CREST (grant no. JPMJCR15F3). L.F. acknowledges support from the Simons Investigator Award from the Simons Foundation. K.F.M. acknowledges support from the David and Lucille Packard Fellowship. C.J. acknowledges support from the Kavli Postdoctoral Fellowship. Z.T. acknowledges support from the Watt W. Webb Graduate Fellowship in Nanoscience.

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Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Chenhao Jin, Zui Tao, Tingxin Li.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Kavli Institute at Cornell for Nanoscale Science, Ithaca, NY, USA

    Chenhao Jin, Zui Tao, Jie Shan & Kin Fai Mak

  2. School of Applied and Engineering Physics, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA

    Zui Tao, Tingxin Li, Yang Xu, Yanhao Tang, Jiacheng Zhu, Jie Shan & Kin Fai Mak

  3. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA

    Song Liu & James C. Hone

  4. National Institute for Materials Science, Tsukuba, Japan

    Kenji Watanabe & Takashi Taniguchi

  5. Department of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Liang Fu

  6. Laboratory of Atomic and Solid State Physics, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA

    Jie Shan & Kin Fai Mak

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Contributions

C.J. and Z.T. performed the optical experiments and analysis. T.L. and J.Z. performed the capacitance experiment and analysis. L.F. performed theoretical analysis. T.L., Z.T., Y.X., Y.T. and J.Z. fabricated the devices. S.L. and J.C.H. grew the bulk TMD crystals. K.W. and T.T. grew the bulk hBN crystals. C.J., J.S. and K.F.M. designed the scientific objectives and oversaw the project. C.J., J.S. and K.F.M. cowrote the manuscript. All authors discussed the results and commented on the manuscript.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Chenhao Jin, Liang Fu, Jie Shan or Kin Fai Mak.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Peer review information Nature Materials thanks the anonymous reviewers for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary Notes 1–9 and Figs. 1–11.

Source data

Source Data Fig. 1

Source data for penetration capacitance and PL in Fig. 1d.

Source Data Fig. 2

Source data for Fig. 2 with each panel given as a different tab.

Source Data Fig. 3

Source data for Fig. 3 with each panel given as a different tab.

Source Data Fig. 4

Source data for Fig. 4a,b,c,e with each panel given as a different tab.

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Jin, C., Tao, Z., Li, T. et al. Stripe phases in WSe2/WS2 moiré superlattices. Nat. Mater. 20, 940–944 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-021-00959-8

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