Continuous Mott Transition in Moiré Semiconductors: Role of Long-Wavelength Inhomogeneities

Kim, Sunghoon; Senthil, T.; Chowdhury, Debanjan

doi:10.1103/physrevlett.130.066301

Continuous Mott Transition in Moiré Semiconductors: Role of Long-Wavelength Inhomogeneities

Journal Article · Thu Feb 09 00:00:00 EST 2023 · Physical Review Letters

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevlett.130.066301· OSTI ID:2419837

^[1]; Senthil, T. ^[2]; ^[3]

Cornell Univ., Ithaca, NY (United States); OSTI
Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States)
Cornell Univ., Ithaca, NY (United States)

Recent experiments in moiré transition metal dichalcogenide materials have reported the observation of a continuous bandwidth-tuned transition from a metal to a paramagnetic Mott insulator at a fixed filling of one electron per moiré unit cell. The electrical transport measurements reveal a number of puzzling features that are seemingly at odds with the theoretical expectations of an interaction-induced, but disorder-free, bandwidth-tuned metal-insulator transition. In this Letter, we include the effects of long-wavelength inhomogeneities, building on the results for a continuous metal-insulator transition at fixed filling in the clean limit. We examine the effects of mesoscale inhomogeneities near the critical point on transport using the framework of random resistor networks, highlighting the salient differences from a simple percolation-based picture. Finally, we place our results in the context of recent and ongoing experiments.

View Accepted Manuscript (DOE)

Research Organization:: Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE Office of Science (SC)

Grant/Contract Number:: SC0008739

OSTI ID:: 2419837

Journal Information:: Physical Review Letters, Journal Name: Physical Review Letters Journal Issue: 6 Vol. 130; ISSN 0031-9007

Publisher:: American Physical Society (APS)Copyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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