DOE OSTI · 3030281
Super-moiré spin textures in twisted two-dimensional antiferromagnets
Abstract
Stacking two-dimensional layered materials offers a platform to engineer electronic and magnetic states. In general, the resulting states—such as moiré magnetism—have a periodicity at the length scale of the moiré unit cell. Here we study magnetic order in twisted double-bilayer chromium triiodide by means of scanning nitrogen-vacancy microscopy. We observe long-range magnetic textures extending beyond the single moiré unit cell, which we dub a super-moiré magnetic state. At small twist angles, the size of the spontaneous magnetic texture increases with twist angle, opposite to the underlying moiré wavelength. The spin-texture size reaches a maximum of about 300 nm in 1.1° twisted devices, an order of magnitude larger than the underlying moiré wavelength, and vanishes at twist angles above 2°. The obtained magnetic field maps suggest the formation of antiferromagnetic Néel-type skyrmions spanning multiple moiré cells. The twist-angle-dependent study, combined with large-scale atomistic Monte Carlo simulations, suggests that the magnetic competition between the Dzyaloshinskii–Moriya interaction, magnetic anisotropy and exchange interactions—which all depend on the relative rotation of the layers—produces the topological textures that emerge in the super-moiré spin order.
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Wong, King Cho [Univ. of Stuttgart (Germany)] (ORCID:0000000326448746), Peng, Ruoming [Univ. of Stuttgart (Germany)] (ORCID:0000000309102866), Anderson, Eric [Univ. of Washington, Seattle, WA (United States)] (ORCID:0000000213576645), Ross, Jackson [Univ. of Edinburgh, Scotland (United Kingdom)] (ORCID:0000000154178216), Yang, Bowen [Univ. of Waterloo, ON (Canada)] (ORCID:0009000184562427), Cheng, Meixin [Univ. of Waterloo, ON (Canada)] (ORCID:0000000254748124), Jayaram, Sreehari [Univ. of Stuttgart (Germany)] (ORCID:0000000228282279), Lenger, Malik [Univ. of Stuttgart (Germany)] (ORCID:0009000079645845), Zhou, Xuankai [Univ. of Stuttgart (Germany)] (ORCID:0009000331316999), Kong, Yan Tung [Univ. of Stuttgart (Germany)], Taniguchi, Takashi [National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS), Tsukuba (Japan)] (ORCID:0000000214673105), Watanabe, Kenji [National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS), Tsukuba (Japan)] (ORCID:0000000337018119), McGuire, Michael A. [Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)] (ORCID:0000000317629406), Stöhr, Rainer [Univ. of Stuttgart (Germany)] (ORCID:000000023476344X), Tsen, Adam W. [Univ. of Waterloo, ON (Canada)], Santos, Elton J. G. [Univ. of Edinburgh, Scotland (United Kingdom); Donostia International Physics Center (DIPC), San Sebastian (Spain)] (ORCID:0000000160655787), Xu, Xiaodong [Univ. of Washington, Seattle, WA (United States)], Wrachtrup, Jörg [Univ. of Stuttgart (Germany); Max Planck Institute of Solid State Research, Stuttgart (Germany)]. 2026-02-02. Super-moiré spin textures in twisted two-dimensional antiferromagnets. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41565-025-02103-y
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