Disorder induced 2D metal-insulator transition in moiré transition metal dichalcogenide multilayers

Abstract

We develop a minimal theory for the recently observed metal-insulator transition (MIT) in two-dimensional (2D) moiré multilayer transition metal dichalcogenides (mTMD) using Coulomb disorder in the environment as the underlying mechanism. In particular, carrier scattering by random charged impurities leads to an effective 2D MIT approximately controlled by the Ioffe-Regel criterion, which is qualitatively consistent with the experiments. We find the necessary disorder to be around $5$-$10\times 10^{10}$cm${}^{-2}$ random charged impurities in order to quantitatively explain much, but not all, of the observed MIT phenomenology as reported by two different experimental groups. Our estimate is consistent with the known disorder content in TMDs.

arXiv comment6 pages, 3 figures + supplementary material (2 pages)

References in corpus (23)

• Optical detection of Mott and generalized Wigner crystal states in WSe2/WS2 moiré superlattices
• Magic continuum in twisted bilayer WSe2
• Hubbard model physics in transition metal dichalcogenide moiré bands
• Abundance of correlated insulating states at fractional fillings of WSe${}_2$/WS${}_2$ moiré superlattices
• Magic in twisted transition metal dichalcogenide bilayers
• Continuous Mott transition in semiconductor moiré superlattices
• Correlated Insulating States at Fractional Fillings of the WS2/WSe2 Moiré Lattice
• Quantum Criticality in Twisted Transition Metal Dichalcogenides
• Stripe phases in WSe2/WS2 moiré superlattices
• Theory of a continuous Mott transition in two dimensions
• Band topology, Hubbard model, Heisenberg model, and Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction in twisted bilayer WSe${}_2$
• Quantum Phase Diagram of a Moiré-Hubbard Model
• Hartree-Fock study of the moiré Hubbard model for twisted bilayer transition metal dichalcogenides
• The Observation of Percolation-Induced 2D Metal-Insulator Transition in a Si MOSFET
• Transport and percolation in a low-density high-mobility two-dimensional hole system
• Metal-insulator transition in transition metal dichalcogenide heterobilayer moiré superlattices
• Universal density scaling of disorder-limited low-temperature conductivity in high-mobility two-dimensional systems
• The 2D metal-insulator transition as a strong localization induced crossover phenomenon
• Interaction-Driven Filling-Induced Metal-Insulator Transitions in 2D Moiré Lattices
• Screening and transport in 2D semiconductor systems at low temperatures
• Two-dimensional metal-insulator-transition as a potential fluctuation driven semiclassical transport phenomenon
• Spin-valley locked instabilities in moire transition metal dichalcogenides with conventional and higher-order Van Hove singularities
• An apparent metal insulator transition in high mobility 2D InAs heterostructures

Cited by in corpus (15)

• Topological Phases in AB-Stacked MoTe${}_2$/WSe${}_2$: ${\mathbb{Z}}_2$ Topological Insulators, Chern Insulators, and Topological Charge Density Waves
• Magnetism and Quantum Melting in Moiré-Material Wigner Crystals
• Metal-insulator transition in transition metal dichalcogenide heterobilayer: accurate treatment of interaction
• Electronic transport, metal-insulator transition, and Wigner crystallization in transition metal dichalcogenide monolayers
• Density-tuned effective metal-insulator transitions in 2D semiconductor layers: Anderson localization or Wigner crystallization
• Doping a Mott insulator with excitons in moiré bilayer: fractional superfluid, neutral Fermi surface and Mott transition
• Continuous Mott transition in moiré semiconductors: role of long-wavelength inhomogeneities
• Evidence of the Coulomb gap in the density of states of MoS${}_2$
• Acoustic phonon contribution to the resistivity of twisted bilayer graphene
• Phonon-limited resistivity of multilayer graphene systems
• Pomeranchuk Effect and Tunable Quantum Phase Transitions in 3L-MoTe2/WSe2
• Apparent Kondo effect in Moiré TMD bilayers: Heavy fermions or disorder?
• Continuous Wigner-Mott transition at $\nu =1/5$
• The kinetic theory of ultra-subsonic fermion systems and applications to flat band magic angle twisted bilayer graphene
• Temperature dependent resistivity in the doped two dimensional metallic phase of mTMD bilayers