Observation of the electronic Pomeranchuk effect in generalized Wigner crystals of twisted MoS2
Abstract
Moire superlattices in transition metal dichalcogenides provide a highly tunable platform for exploring strongly correlated electronic phases, such as generalized Wigner crystals. While these crystalline states typically melt with increasing thermal fluctuations, an electronic analogue of the Pomeranchuk effect can stabilize the localized solid phase at elevated temperature through isospin entropy. Here, we report the observation of an electronic Pomeranchuk effect at the fractional filling factors of ν= 1/3 and ν= 1/4 in AB-stacked twisted bilayer MoS2 with twist angles of 4.1∘ and 3.9∘, respectively. At ultra-low temperature, the system exhibits a highly conducting, itinerant behavior at these fractional fillings, characteristic of a compressible Fermi-liquid ground state. Upon heating, the system exhibits a counterintuitive increase in the longitudinal resistivity, signaling an isospin-entropy-driven transition into a localized generalized Wigner crystal state. Our findings highlight the unique capacity of flat bands in twisted bilayer MoS2 for stabilizing highly degenerate magnetic configurations, offering new insights into the thermodynamic phase diagrams of low-dimensional correlated systems.
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BibTeX
@misc{fang2026observation,
title = {{Observation of the electronic Pomeranchuk effect in generalized Wigner crystals of twisted MoS$_2$}},
author = {Xinjie Fang and Linfeng Wu and Naitian Liu and Le Zhang and Wenqiang Zhou and Jing Ding and Zhangyuan Chen and Hanxiao Xiang and Yue Xiao and Kenji Watanabe and Takashi Taniguchi and Shuigang Xu},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.30788},
eprint = {2609.30788},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.30788},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Observation of the electronic Pomeranchuk effect in generalized Wigner crystals of twisted MoS_2
AU - Xinjie Fang
AU - Linfeng Wu
AU - Naitian Liu
AU - Le Zhang
AU - Wenqiang Zhou
AU - Jing Ding
AU - Zhangyuan Chen
AU - Hanxiao Xiang
AU - Yue Xiao
AU - Kenji Watanabe
AU - Takashi Taniguchi
AU - Shuigang Xu
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/25
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.30788
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.30788
AB - Moire superlattices in transition metal dichalcogenides provide a highly tunable platform for exploring strongly correlated electronic phases, such as generalized Wigner crystals. While these crystalline states typically melt with increasing thermal fluctuations, an electronic analogue of the Pomeranchuk effect can stabilize the localized solid phase at elevated temperature through isospin entropy. Here, we report the observation of an electronic Pomeranchuk effect at the fractional filling factors of ν= 1/3 and ν= 1/4 in AB-stacked twisted bilayer MoS_2 with twist angles of 4.1^∘ and 3.9^∘, respectively. At ultra-low temperature, the system exhibits a highly conducting, itinerant behavior at these fractional fillings, characteristic of a compressible Fermi-liquid ground state. Upon heating, the system exhibits a counterintuitive increase in the longitudinal resistivity, signaling an isospin-entropy-driven transition into a localized generalized Wigner crystal state. Our findings highlight the unique capacity of flat bands in twisted bilayer MoS_2 for stabilizing highly degenerate magnetic configurations, offering new insights into the thermodynamic phase diagrams of low-dimensional correlated systems.
ER -