Topological insulators in twisted transition metal dichalcogenide homobilayers

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that twisted bilayer transition metal dichalcogenides can host topologically nontrivial moiré bands, realizing quantum spin-Hall insulators with potential for novel correlated insulating states at specific electron fillings.

Contribution

It reveals the topological nature of moiré bands in twisted TMD bilayers, especially bilayer MoTe₂, and connects the band topology to the Kane-Mele model in a real material system.

Findings

Moiré bands in twisted TMD bilayers can be topologically nontrivial.

The valence band states form a skyrmion lattice texture in real space.

The topmost moiré valence bands realize the Kane-Mele quantum spin-Hall model.

Abstract

We show that moir\'e bands of twisted homobilayers can be topologically nontrivial, and illustrate the tendency by studying valence band states in $\pm K$ valleys of twisted bilayer transition metal dichalcogenides, in particular, bilayer MoTe$_2$. Because of the large spin-orbit splitting at the monolayer valence band maxima, the low energy valence states of the twisted bilayer MoTe$_2$ at $+K$ ($-K$) valley can be described using a two-band model with a layer-pseudospin magnetic field $\boldsymbol{\Delta}(\boldsymbol{r})$ that has the moir\'e period. We show that $\boldsymbol{\Delta}(\boldsymbol{r})$ has a topologically non-trivial skyrmion lattice texture in real space, and that the topmost moir\'e valence bands provide a realization of the Kane-Mele quantum spin-Hall model, i.e., the two-dimensional time-reversal-invariant topological insulator. Because the bands narrow at small twist angles, a rich set of broken symmetry insulating states can occur at integer numbers of electrons per moir\'e cell.