Topological Kondo semimetal and insulator in AB-stacked heterobilayer transition metal dichalcogenides

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Guerci, Daniele, Lucht, Kevin P., Crépel, Valentin, Cano, Jennifer, Pixley, J. H., Millis, Andrew J.
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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author Guerci, Daniele
Lucht, Kevin P.
Crépel, Valentin
Cano, Jennifer
Pixley, J. H.
Millis, Andrew J.
author_facet Guerci, Daniele
Lucht, Kevin P.
Crépel, Valentin
Cano, Jennifer
Pixley, J. H.
Millis, Andrew J.
contents Recent experiments reported the realization of a heavy Fermi liquid in AB-stacked MoTe$_2$/WSe$_2$ heterobilayers. In this paper we show that the AB-stacked heterobilayer configuration is particularly suited to realize topological Kondo semimetal and topological Kondo insulator ground states at a doping of two holes per moiré unit cell. The small lattice mismatch between the MoTe$_2$ and WSe$_2$ monolayers and the different bandwidths of their highest lying moiré valence bands means that, in the experimentally relevant range of hole dopings, the MoTe$_2$ layer is effectively a Mott insulator with only low-lying magnetic excitations Kondo-coupled to more itinerant electrons in the WSe$_2$. The crucial consequence of the AB-stacking configuration is that the interlayer tunnelling connects orbitals of opposite parity in the two layers, leading to a chiral Kondo coupling. We show that the chiral Kondo coupling favors a topological Kondo semimetal at filling $ν=1+1$, with a non-quantized spin Hall conductance arising from edge modes, whose spectrum and overlap with bulk states we determine. We further show that a spatially random strain field that locally breaks the rotation symmetry can convert the Kondo semimetal to a narrow gap topological Kondo insulator featuring a quantized spin Hall conductance.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2407_12912
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Topological Kondo semimetal and insulator in AB-stacked heterobilayer transition metal dichalcogenides
Guerci, Daniele
Lucht, Kevin P.
Crépel, Valentin
Cano, Jennifer
Pixley, J. H.
Millis, Andrew J.
Strongly Correlated Electrons
Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics
Recent experiments reported the realization of a heavy Fermi liquid in AB-stacked MoTe$_2$/WSe$_2$ heterobilayers. In this paper we show that the AB-stacked heterobilayer configuration is particularly suited to realize topological Kondo semimetal and topological Kondo insulator ground states at a doping of two holes per moiré unit cell. The small lattice mismatch between the MoTe$_2$ and WSe$_2$ monolayers and the different bandwidths of their highest lying moiré valence bands means that, in the experimentally relevant range of hole dopings, the MoTe$_2$ layer is effectively a Mott insulator with only low-lying magnetic excitations Kondo-coupled to more itinerant electrons in the WSe$_2$. The crucial consequence of the AB-stacking configuration is that the interlayer tunnelling connects orbitals of opposite parity in the two layers, leading to a chiral Kondo coupling. We show that the chiral Kondo coupling favors a topological Kondo semimetal at filling $ν=1+1$, with a non-quantized spin Hall conductance arising from edge modes, whose spectrum and overlap with bulk states we determine. We further show that a spatially random strain field that locally breaks the rotation symmetry can convert the Kondo semimetal to a narrow gap topological Kondo insulator featuring a quantized spin Hall conductance.
title Topological Kondo semimetal and insulator in AB-stacked heterobilayer transition metal dichalcogenides
topic Strongly Correlated Electrons
Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2407.12912