Mukherjee Ayshi, Layek Surat, Sinha Subhajit, Kundu Ritajit, Marchawala Alisha H, Hingankar Mahesh, Sarkar Joydip, Sangani L D Varma, Agarwal Heena, Ghosh Sanat, Tazi Aya Batoul, Watanabe Kenji, Taniguchi Takashi, Pasupathy Abhay N, Kundu Arijit, Deshmukh Mandar M
Department of Condensed Matter Physics and Materials Science, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai, India.
ICFO-Institut de Ciencies Fotoniques, The Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology, Castelldefels, Spain.
Nat Mater. 2025 May 22. doi: 10.1038/s41563-025-02252-4.
The microscopic mechanism of unconventional superconductivity in magic-angle twisted trilayer graphene is poorly understood. We show direct evidence for an in-plane magnetic order competing with the superconducting state motivated by theoretical proposals. We use two complementary electrical transport measurements. First, in statistically significant switching events in the superconducting state of magic-angle twisted trilayer graphene, we observe non-monotonic and hysteretic responses in the switching distributions as a function of temperature and in-plane magnetic field. Additionally, the system behaves like a network of Josephson junctions due to lattice-relaxation-induced moiré inhomogeneity. Second, in normal regions doped slightly away from the superconducting regime, hysteretic and linear positive magnetoresistance with the in-plane magnetic field shows evidence for an in-plane magnetic order. Furthermore, we estimate superfluid stiffness J ≈ 0.15 K with strong temperature dependence and show a broadened Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless transition. Our observations may constrain possible intervalley-coherent magnetic orders and the superconductivity arising from its fluctuations.
魔角扭曲三层石墨烯中非传统超导的微观机制仍知之甚少。基于理论推测,我们展示了与超导态竞争的面内磁序的直接证据。我们采用了两种互补的电输运测量方法。首先,在魔角扭曲三层石墨烯超导态具有统计显著性的开关事件中,我们观察到开关分布随温度和面内磁场呈现非单调和滞后响应。此外,由于晶格弛豫引起的莫尔不均匀性,该系统表现得像一个约瑟夫森结网络。其次,在略偏离超导区域进行掺杂的正常区域中,面内磁场导致的滞后和线性正磁阻表明存在面内磁序。此外,我们估计超流刚度J≈0.15 K,具有很强的温度依赖性,并展示了展宽的 Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless 转变。我们的观察结果可能会限制可能的谷间相干磁序及其涨落产生的超导性。