Electric-Field-Tuned Consecutive Topological Phase Transitions between Distinct Correlated Insulators in Moiré <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"> <mml:mrow> <mml:msub> <mml:mrow> <mml:mi>MoTe</mml:mi> </mml:mro

Consecutive topological phase transitions (TPTs) between strongly correlated electronic phases that differ simultaneously in symmetry breaking and topological order are of fundamental interest in condensed matter physics, yet, rarely realized experimentally. We report two consecutive electric-field-driven TPTs at half filling (ν=1) in angle-aligned MoTe_{2}/WSe_{2} moiré heterobilayers. With increasing out-of-plane displacement field, a geometrically frustrated Mott insulator evolves into a ferromagnetic quantum anomalous Hall (QAH) Mott insulator, i.e., a spin-polarized topological Mott insulator without an observable charge-gap closure, and subsequently into an antiferromagnetic, valley-coherent Mott insulator (VC-AFM) accompanied by a continuous charge-gap collapse and the emergence of a critical metallic state. Layer-resolved magnetic circular dichroism (MCD), magneto-transport, and compressibility measurements jointly determine the phase diagram. The high-field evolution of the antiferromagnetic state reveals a metamagnetic-like transition at a critical field B^{*}, above which a Chern insulating transport response reappears. Our results establish the MoTe_{2}/WSe_{2} moiré platform as a tunable realization of an extended Kane-Mele-Hubbard model hosting sequential correlation-topology intertwined transitions.

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Publication Details

Journal
Physical Review Letters
Published
2026-02-04
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1103/gt9l-954n
Primary Topic
2D Materials and Applications
Type
article
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article

Electric-Field-Tuned Consecutive Topological Phase Transitions between Distinct Correlated Insulators in Moiré <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"> <mml:mrow> <mml:msub> <mml:mrow> <mml:mi>MoTe</mml:mi> </mml:mro

Kateryna Pistunova, Jenny Hu, Bowen Shen, Tingxin Li et al.
Physical Review Letters
2D Materials and Applications
article

Electric-Field-Tuned Consecutive Topological Phase Transitions between Distinct Correlated Insulators in Moiré <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"> <mml:mrow> <mml:msub> <mml:mrow> <mml:mi>MoTe</mml:mi> </mml:mro

Kateryna Pistunova, Jenny Hu, Bowen Shen, Tingxin Li, W.B. Tian, Zui Tao, Shengwei Jiang, Jie Shan, Anonymous, K. Mak, Takashi Taniguchi
article en

Abstract

Consecutive topological phase transitions (TPTs) between strongly correlated electronic phases that differ simultaneously in symmetry breaking and topological order are of fundamental interest in condensed matter physics, yet, rarely realized experimentally. We report two consecutive electric-field-driven TPTs at half filling (ν=1) in angle-aligned MoTe_{2}/WSe_{2} moiré heterobilayers. With increasing out-of-plane displacement field, a geometrically frustrated Mott insulator evolves into a ferromagnetic quantum anomalous Hall (QAH) Mott insulator, i.e., a spin-polarized topological Mott insulator without an observable charge-gap closure, and subsequently into an antiferromagnetic, valley-coherent Mott insulator (VC-AFM) accompanied by a continuous charge-gap collapse and the emergence of a critical metallic state. Layer-resolved magnetic circular dichroism (MCD), magneto-transport, and compressibility measurements jointly determine the phase diagram. The high-field evolution of the antiferromagnetic state reveals a metamagnetic-like transition at a critical field B^{*}, above which a Chern insulating transport response reappears. Our results establish the MoTe_{2}/WSe_{2} moiré platform as a tunable realization of an extended Kane-Mele-Hubbard model hosting sequential correlation-topology intertwined transitions.

Physical Review LettersVol. 136(9)
Shanghai Jiao Tong University (CN), National Institute for Materials Science (JP), Cornell University (US), SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (US), Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter (DE), Stanford University (US)
Openalex Percentile: Top 67%
2D Materials and Applications
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