Robust non-Abelian even-denominator fractional Chern insulator in twisted bilayer MoTe2

Feng Chen, Wei-Wei Luo, Wei Zhu () and D. N. Sheng ()
Additional contact information
Feng Chen: California State University Northridge
Wei-Wei Luo: Zhejiang Normal University
Wei Zhu: Westlake University
D. N. Sheng: California State University Northridge

Nature Communications, 2025, vol. 16, issue 1, 1-9

Abstract: Abstract A recent experiment has observed a series of quantum-spin-Hall effects in moiré MoTe2. Among them, the vanishing Hall signal at the filling factor ν = 3 implies a possible realization of a time-reversal pair of even-denominator fractional Chern insulators. Inspired by this discovery, we numerically investigate whether a robust incompressible quantum-Hall liquid can be stabilized in the half-filled Chern band of twisted MoTe2 bilayers. We use the continuum model with parameters relevant to twisted MoTe2 bilayers and obtain three consecutive nearly flat Chern bands with the same Chern number. Crucially, when the second moiré miniband is half-filled, signatures of a non-Abelian fractional quantum-Hall state are found via exact diagonalization calculations, including a stable six-fold ground-state degeneracy that grows more robust with the lattice size and is consistent with an even-denominator fractional Chern insulator state. Our results signal the potential of realizing the non-Abelian state at zero magnetic field in twisted bilayer MoTe2 at the fractional hole filling of 3/2.

Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-57326-3 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:16:y:2025:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-025-57326-3

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-025-57326-3

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().