Work

Spontaneous Twirls and Structural Frustration in Moiré Materials

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: Structural twirls form spontaneously in the domain wall networks of some moiré materials. We show that in heterobilayers, neighboring twirl chiralities tend to antialign, forming staggered patterns that are well described by antiferromagnetic lattice ϕ^{4} theories. In moiré systems with triangular domains, this leads to frustration in the chirality configuration of the twirls and to hysteresis with respect to variation of the average twist angle and possibly other control parameters. We expect that in typical materials, the ordering temperature of twirls is about 10^{3} K, and that thermal fluctuations in individual twirl chiralities freeze below room temperature.

Source: Physical Review Letters

DOI: 10.1103/vt8n-w1pb

Authors: Jingtian Shi, Gaurav Chaudhary, Allan H. MacDonald, Ivar Martin

Institutions: Argonne National Laboratory, University of Cambridge, The University of Texas at Austin

Language: English

Topic: Topological Materials and Phenomena

Subfield: Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics

Field: Physics and Astronomy

Domain: Physical Sciences

Open Access status: green