Gate-Tunable Orbital Magnetism and Competing Superconductivity in Twisted Trilayer Graphene Josephson Junctions

Twisted trilayer graphene (TTG) provides a tunable moiré platform to study correlated phases emerging from flat-band physics. Here, we investigate the interplay between superconductivity and spontaneous orbital magnetism (OM) in alternating TTG devices with intermediate twist angles (1.38-1.44°). Using electrostatically defined Josephson junctions, we demonstrate that OM, stabilized near the charge neutrality point (CNP), competes with gate-induced superconductivity. The OM phase is characterized by sharp jumps in Hall resistance, current-induced bistability, and a Curie-Bloch temperature dependence, indicating broken time-reversal symmetry. Additionally, nonreciprocal Josephson transport─manifested as asymmetric Fraunhofer patterns and a superconducting diode effect─provides independent evidence of an orbital magnetic state confined to the weak link. The observed critical temperature hierarchy, where superconductivity dominates over OM at higher carrier densities and displacement fields, reveals a tunable competition between two broken-symmetry ground states. Our findings establish alternating TTG Josephson devices as a minimal and versatile platform to probe the coexistence of magnetism and superconductivity in engineered moiré systems.

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Publication Details

Journal
ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces
Published
2025-12-08
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1021/acsami.5c15822
Primary Topic
Topological Materials and Phenomena
Type
article
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article

Gate-Tunable Orbital Magnetism and Competing Superconductivity in Twisted Trilayer Graphene Josephson Junctions

Gal Shavit, Matan Bocarsly, Tobias Holder, Yuval Ronen et al.
ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces
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Gate-Tunable Orbital Magnetism and Competing Superconductivity in Twisted Trilayer Graphene Josephson Junctions

Gal Shavit, Matan Bocarsly, Tobias Holder, Yuval Ronen, Takashi Taniguchi, Kenji Watanabe, V. Bhardwaj, Yuval Oreg, Alexey Ilin, Lekshmi Rajagopal, Lorenzo Arici
article en

Abstract

Twisted trilayer graphene (TTG) provides a tunable moiré platform to study correlated phases emerging from flat-band physics. Here, we investigate the interplay between superconductivity and spontaneous orbital magnetism (OM) in alternating TTG devices with intermediate twist angles (1.38-1.44°). Using electrostatically defined Josephson junctions, we demonstrate that OM, stabilized near the charge neutrality point (CNP), competes with gate-induced superconductivity. The OM phase is characterized by sharp jumps in Hall resistance, current-induced bistability, and a Curie-Bloch temperature dependence, indicating broken time-reversal symmetry. Additionally, nonreciprocal Josephson transport─manifested as asymmetric Fraunhofer patterns and a superconducting diode effect─provides independent evidence of an orbital magnetic state confined to the weak link. The observed critical temperature hierarchy, where superconductivity dominates over OM at higher carrier densities and displacement fields, reveals a tunable competition between two broken-symmetry ground states. Our findings establish alternating TTG Josephson devices as a minimal and versatile platform to probe the coexistence of magnetism and superconductivity in engineered moiré systems.

ACS Applied Materials & InterfacesVol. 17(51)
California Institute of Technology (US), Tel Aviv University (IL), National Institute for Materials Science (JP), Collaborative Innovation Center of Quantum Matter (CN), Weizmann Institute of Science (IL)
Openalex Percentile: Top 69%
Topological Materials and Phenomena
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