Melting of generalized Wigner crystals in transition metal dichalcogenide heterobilayer Moiré systems

Abstract

Moiré superlattice systems such as transition metal dichalcogenide heterobilayers have garnered significant recent interest due to their promising utility as tunable solid state simulators. Recent experiments on a WSe${}_2$/WS${}_2$ heterobilayer detected incompressible charge ordered states that one can view as generalized Wigner crystals. The tunability of the hetero-TMD Moiré system presents an opportunity to study the rich set of possible phases upon melting these charge-ordered states. Here we use Monte Carlo simulations to study these intermediate phases in between incompressible charge-ordered states in the strong coupling limit. We find two distinct stripe solid states to be each preceded by distinct types of nematic states. In particular, we discover microscopic mechanisms that stabilize each of the nematic states, whose order parameter transforms as the two-dimensional $E$ representation of the Moiré lattice point group. Our results provide a testable experimental prediction of where both types of nematic occur, and elucidate the microscopic mechanism driving their formation.

References in corpus (3)

• Continuous Mott transition in semiconductor moiré superlattices
• Quantum Criticality in Twisted Transition Metal Dichalcogenides
• Local Sensing of Correlated Electrons in Dual-moiré Heterostructures using Dipolar Excitons

Cited by in corpus (22)

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• Continuous Wigner-Mott transition at $\nu =1/5$
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• Charge-Ordered States and the Phase Diagram of the Extended Hubbard Model on the Bethe lattice
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