Quantum oscillations between excitonic and quantum spin Hall insulators in moiré WSe2
Zhongdong Han, Yiyu Xia, Kenji Watanabe, Takashi Taniguchi, Kin Fai Mak, Jie Shan
Published: 2025/9/23
Abstract
Quantum spin Hall insulators (QSHIs) and excitonic insulators (EIs) are prototypical topological and correlated states of matter, respectively. The topological phase transition between the two has attracted much theoretical interest but experimental studies have been hindered by the availability of tunable materials that can access such a transition. Here, by utilizing the interaction-enhanced g-factor and the flat moir\'e bands in twisted bilayer WSe2 (tWSe2), we realize tunable electron-like and hole-like Landau levels (LLs) in the opposite valleys of tWSe2 under a perpendicular magnetic field. At half-band-filling, which corresponds to electron-hole charge neutrality, periodic oscillations between QSHIs (for fully filled LLs) and EIs (for half-filled LLs) are observed due to the interplay between the cyclotron energy and the intervalley correlation; QSHIs with up to four pairs of helical edge states can be resolved. We further analyze the effect of Fermi surface nesting on the stability of EIs via electric field-tuning of the moir\'e band structure. Our results demonstrate a novel QSHI-to-EI topological phase transition and provide a comprehensive understanding of the fermiology of tWSe2.