New moiré superconductor opens the door to new quantum materials Premium

In a recent study in Nature, scientists reported that moiré materials made from semiconductor materials can also be superconducting, a property once considered to be exclusive to the graphene system, paving the way for new materials with more unusual properties.

Scientists are constantly engineering new materials that exhibit exotic properties. Moiré materials are a deceptively simple.

Take a material made of a single type of atom, like a block of graphite. Slice off a thin layer from the top so that you have a two-dimensional sheet of carbon atoms bonded together (graphene). Place one sheet on top of another. Finally, twist the top sheet by a small angle.

You now have a moiré material.

These materials have unusual electronic and quantum properties. The one made of graphene has even been found to be a superconductor.

In a recent study in Nature, scientists reported that moiré materials made from semiconductor materials can also be superconducting, a property once considered to be exclusive to the graphene system.

Exploring why semiconductor moiré materials behave differently from graphene in terms of superconductivity is key to advancing our understanding of quantum materials. This in turn can pave the way for new materials with more unusual properties — and unusual applications.

The researchers explored superconductivity in twisted bilayer tungsten diselenide (tWSe₂), a moiré material created by stacking two layers of tungsten diselenide, a semiconductor, and rotating one layer by a small angle.