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Valley-Polarized Quantum Anomalous Hall State in Moiré MoTe2/WSe2 Heterobilayers

Cornell Affiliated Author(s)

Author

Y.-M. Xie
C.-P. Zhang
J.-X. Hu
K.F. Mak
K.T. Law

Abstract

Moiré heterobilayer transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) emerge as an ideal system for simulating the single-band Hubbard model and interesting correlated phases have been observed in these systems. Nevertheless, the moiré bands in heterobilayer TMDs were believed to be topologically trivial. Recently, it was reported that both a quantum valley Hall insulating state at filling ν=2 (two holes per moiré unit cell) and a valley-polarized quantum anomalous Hall state at filling ν=1 were observed in AB stacked moiré MoTe2/WSe2 heterobilayers. However, how the topologically nontrivial states emerge is not known. In this Letter, we propose that the pseudomagnetic fields induced by lattice relaxation in moiré MoTe2/WSe2 heterobilayers could naturally give rise to moiré bands with finite Chern numbers. We show that a time-reversal invariant quantum valley Hall insulator is formed at full filling ν=2, when two moiré bands with opposite Chern numbers are filled. At half filling ν=1, the Coulomb interaction lifts the valley degeneracy and results in a valley-polarized quantum anomalous Hall state, as observed in the experiment. Our theory identifies a new way to achieve topologically nontrivial states in heterobilayer TMD materials. © 2022 American Physical Society.

Date Published

Journal

Physical Review Letters

Volume

128

Issue

2

URL

https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-85123876194&doi=10.1103%2fPhysRevLett.128.026402&partnerID=40&md5=d34b1c47918a9a0c1ebbdaf1a8dd8bae

DOI

10.1103/PhysRevLett.128.026402

Group (Lab)

Kin Fai Mak Group

Funding Source

FA9550-20-1-0219
16309718
16310219
16310520
AoE/P-701/20
C6025-19G
RFS2021-6S03

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