Evidence for a charged vortex lattice in an exciton superfluid
Abstract
Lattices of quantized vortices are a defining property of rotating superfluids and of type-II superconductors in magnetic fields. Realizing an analogous vortex lattice in an exciton superfluid-formed from bound electron-hole pairs-has remained challenging because excitons are electrically neutral. Building on previous theoretical studies of the low-energy excitations in an exciton superfluid, recent theory has predicted that in a strong magnetic field, a weakly charged exciton superfluid can stabilize a vortex-antivortex lattice arising from the mutual repulsion of fractionally charged vortex cores. Here we report evidence for this predicted vortex lattice in a bilayer exciton condensate by imaging its charged vortices with the scanning tunnelling microscope. The condensate forms between Landau levels of two graphene layers separated by a thin hexagonal boron nitride barrier in a perpendicular magnetic field. We find that the vortex lattice periodicity scales with the total excess charge and is insensitive to its distribution between the two layers, in quantitative agreement with theoretical predictions. Our observations provide evidence for phase coherence in an exciton superfluid system.
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BibTeX
@misc{lee2026evidence,
title = {{Evidence for a charged vortex lattice in an exciton superfluid}},
author = {Ryan L. Lee and Jungwoo Lee and Viliam Vaňo and Bo Zou and Cheng-Li Chiu and Kenji Watanabe and Takashi Taniguchi and Allan MacDonald and Ali Yazdani},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2610.37781},
eprint = {2610.37781},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.37781},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Evidence for a charged vortex lattice in an exciton superfluid
AU - Ryan L. Lee
AU - Jungwoo Lee
AU - Viliam Vaňo
AU - Bo Zou
AU - Cheng-Li Chiu
AU - Kenji Watanabe
AU - Takashi Taniguchi
AU - Allan MacDonald
AU - Ali Yazdani
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/27
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2610.37781
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.37781
AB - Lattices of quantized vortices are a defining property of rotating superfluids and of type-II superconductors in magnetic fields. Realizing an analogous vortex lattice in an exciton superfluid-formed from bound electron-hole pairs-has remained challenging because excitons are electrically neutral. Building on previous theoretical studies of the low-energy excitations in an exciton superfluid, recent theory has predicted that in a strong magnetic field, a weakly charged exciton superfluid can stabilize a vortex-antivortex lattice arising from the mutual repulsion of fractionally charged vortex cores. Here we report evidence for this predicted vortex lattice in a bilayer exciton condensate by imaging its charged vortices with the scanning tunnelling microscope. The condensate forms between Landau levels of two graphene layers separated by a thin hexagonal boron nitride barrier in a perpendicular magnetic field. We find that the vortex lattice periodicity scales with the total excess charge and is insensitive to its distribution between the two layers, in quantitative agreement with theoretical predictions. Our observations provide evidence for phase coherence in an exciton superfluid system.
ER -