Super-moiré spin textures in twisted two-dimensional antiferromagnets
Stacking two-dimensional layered materials offers a platform to engineer electronic and magnetic states. In general, the resulting states-such as moiré magnetism-have a periodicity at the length scale of the moiré unit cell. Here we study magnetic order in twisted double-bilayer chromium triiodide by means of scanning nitrogen-vacancy microscopy. We observe long-range magnetic textures extending beyond the single moiré unit cell, which we dub a super-moiré magnetic state. At small twist angles, the size of the spontaneous magnetic texture increases with twist angle, opposite to the underlying moiré wavelength. The spin-texture size reaches a maximum of about 300 nm in 1.1° twisted devices, an order of magnitude larger than the underlying moiré wavelength, and vanishes at twist angles above 2°. The obtained magnetic field maps suggest the formation of antiferromagnetic Néel-type skyrmions spanning multiple moiré cells. The twist-angle-dependent study, combined with large-scale atomistic Monte Carlo simulations, suggests that the magnetic competition between the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction, magnetic anisotropy and exchange interactions-which all depend on the relative rotation of the layers-produces the topological textures that emerge in the super-moiré spin order.
Authors
- Ruoming Peng (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0910-2866)
- Rainer Stöhr (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3476-344X)
- Sreehari Jayaram (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2828-2279)
- Malik Lenger
- Yan Kong (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6599-2416)
- X. F. Zhou (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0002-0220-2389)
- Jackson L. Ross (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5417-8216)
- Jörg Wrachtrup
- Bowen Yang
- Kenji Watanabe
- Xiaodong Xu
- Meixin Cheng
- Adam W. Tsen
- Elton J. G. Santos
- Takashi Taniguchi
- King Cho Wong
- Eric Anderson
- Michael A. McGuire
Institutions
- University of Stuttgart (DE)
- Oak Ridge National Laboratory (US)
- Royal Society of Edinburgh (GB)
- University of Waterloo (CA)
- University of Washington (US)
- National Institute for Materials Science (JP)
- Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research (DE)
- Donostia International Physics Center (ES)
- University of Edinburgh (GB)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Nature Nanotechnology
- Published
- 2026-02-02
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1038/s41565-025-02103-y
- Citations
- 1
- Primary Topic
- Topological Materials and Phenomena
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 31.39
Funders
- National Science Foundation
- U.S. Department of Energy
- University of Washington
- Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung
- Universität Stuttgart
- Office of Science
- U.S. Air Force
- Materials Research Science and Engineering Center, Harvard University
- Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council
- Division of Materials Research
- Basic Energy Sciences
- Air Force Office of Scientific Research
- Oak Ridge National Laboratory