Article Confined Trions and Mott-Wigner States in a Purely Electrostatic Moiré Potential

Natasha Kiper ; Haydn S. Adlong ; Arthur Christianen ; Martin Kroner ; Kenji Watanabe SAMURAI ORCID (National Institute for Materials Science) ; Takashi Taniguchi SAMURAI ORCID (National Institute for Materials Science) ; Atac İmamoğlu

PhysRevX.15.011049.pdf
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Natasha Kiper, Haydn S. Adlong, Arthur Christianen, Martin Kroner, Kenji Watanabe, Takashi Taniguchi, Atac İmamoğlu. Confined Trions and Mott-Wigner States in a Purely Electrostatic Moiré Potential. Physical Review X. 2025, 15 (1), 011049. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevx.15.011049

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(abstract)

Moiré heterostructures consisting of transition metal dichalcogenide (TMD) hetero- and homo bilayers have emerged as a promising material platform to study correlated electronic states. Optical signatures of strong correlations in the form of Mott–Wigner states and fractional Chern insulators have already been observed in TMD monolayers and their twisted bilayers. In this work, we use a moiré substrate containing a twisted hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) interface to externally generate a superlattice potential for the TMD layer: the periodic structure of ferroelectric domains in h-BN effects a purely electrostatic potential for charge carriers. We find direct evidence for the induced moiré potential in the emergence of new excitonic resonances at integer fillings, and our observation of an enhancement of the trion binding energy by ≃ 3 meV. A theoretical model for exciton-electron interactions allows us to directly determine the moiré potential modulation of 30 ± 5 meV from the measured trion binding energy shift. We obtain direct evidence for charge order linked to electronic Mott–Wigner states at filling factors ν = 1/3 and ν = 2/3 through the associated exciton Umklapp resonances.

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Keyword: moiré potential
, trion, Mott-Wigner states


Date published: 2025-03-05

Publisher: American Physical Society (APS)

Journal:

  • Physical Review X (ISSN: 21603308) vol. 15 issue. 1 011049

Funding:

  • Schweizerischer Nationalfonds zur Förderung der Wissenschaftlichen Forschung 200021-204076
  • Japan Society for the Promotion of Science 21H05233
  • Japan Society for the Promotion of Science 23H02052
  • Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology
  • World Premier International Research Center Initiative

Manuscript type: Publisher's version (Version of record)

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First published URL: https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevx.15.011049

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Updated at: 2026-02-16 16:31:06 +0900

Published on MDR: 2026-02-16 13:57:31 +0900

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