Gate-Tunable Orbital Magnetism and Competing Superconductivity in Twisted Trilayer Graphene Josephson Junctions
Source abstract
Abstract
Twisted trilayer graphene (TTG) provides a tunable moiré platform to study correlated phases emerging from flat-band physics. Here, we investigate the interplay between superconductivity and spontaneous orbital magnetism (OM) in alternating TTG devices with intermediate twist angles (1.38-1.44°). Using electrostatically defined Josephson junctions, we demonstrate that OM, stabilized near the charge neutrality point (CNP), competes with gate-induced superconductivity. The OM phase is characterized by sharp jumps in Hall resistance, current-induced bistability, and a Curie-Bloch temperature dependence, indicating broken time-reversal symmetry. Additionally, nonreciprocal Josephson transport─manifested as asymmetric Fraunhofer patterns and a superconducting diode effect─provides independent evidence of an orbital magnetic state confined to the weak link. The observed critical temperature hierarchy, where superconductivity dominates over OM at higher carrier densities and displacement fields, reveals a tunable competition between two broken-symmetry ground states. Our findings establish alternating TTG Josephson devices as a minimal and versatile platform to probe the coexistence of magnetism and superconductivity in engineered moiré systems.
Source: openalex_inverted_index · Quality: baseline
Research context
OpenAlex topics: Topological Materials and Phenomena · Graphene research and applications · 2D Materials and Applications
SciVX discovery tags are terminology-based. OpenAlex topics are source-provided classifications.
Affiliations
Department of Condensed Matter Physics
Weizmann Institute of Science
Department of Physics and Institute for Quantum Information and Matter
California Institute of Technology
Research Center for Functional Materials
National Institute for Materials Science
International Center for Materials Nanoarchitectonics
School of Physics and Astronomy
Tel Aviv University
Funding
Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung · Minerva Foundation · H2020 European Research Council · Gerald Schwartz and Heather Reisman Foundation
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