Super-moiré spin textures in twisted two-dimensional antiferromagnets

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Authors: King Cho Wong, Ruoming Peng, Eric Anderson, Jackson L. Ross, Bowen Yang, Meixin Cheng, Sreehari Jayaram, Malik Lenger, X. F. Zhou, Yan Kong, Takashi Taniguchi, Kenji Watanabe
+6 more Michael A. McGuire, Rainer Stöhr, Adam W. Tsen, Elton J. G. Santos, Xiaodong Xu, Jörg Wrachtrup
Cited by: 8
References: 59

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.

Fields of Study & Subjects

Topological Materials and Phenomena Magnetic properties of thin films 2D Materials and Applications

Publication details

Journal / source
Nature Nanotechnology
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Volume
21
Issue
3
Pages
359–365
Publication date
2 February 2026
Language
EN