Superconductivity in twisted bilayer WSe${}_2$

Abstract

The discovery of superconductivity in twisted bilayer and twisted trilayer graphene has generated tremendous interest. The key feature of these systems is an interplay between interlayer coupling and a moiré superlattice that gives rise to low-energy flat bands with strong correlations. Flat bands can also be induced by moiré patterns in lattice-mismatched and or twisted heterostructures of other two-dimensional materials such as transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs). Although a wide range of correlated phenomenon have indeed been observed in the moiré TMDs, robust demonstration of superconductivity has remained absent. Here we report superconductivity in 5 degree twisted bilayer WSe${}_2$ (tWSe${}_2$) with a maximum critical temperature of 426 mK. The superconducting state appears in a limited region of displacement field and density that is adjacent to a metallic state with Fermi surface reconstruction believed to arise from antiferromagnetic order. A sharp boundary is observed between the superconducting and magnetic phases at low temperature, reminiscent of spin-fluctuation mediated superconductivity. Our results establish that moiré flat-band superconductivity extends beyond graphene structures. Material properties that are absent in graphene but intrinsic among the TMDs such as a native band gap, large spin-orbit coupling, spin-valley locking, and magnetism offer the possibility to access a broader superconducting parameter space than graphene-only structures.