Metallic electron crystals in rhombohedral graphene as a bridge to twisted WSe2
Abstract
Superconducting phases have recently been discovered both in twisted bilayers of transition metal dichalcogenide WSe2 (tWSe2) and in rhombohedral multilayer graphene (RMG). While both have generated extensive interest, they appear to be driven by qualitatively different physics. Here, we propose a unified picture in which the superconductivity in RMG arises from a strongly correlated metallic state with a spatial length scale that is compatible with the moiré length scale of tWSe2. Central to this mechanism is a Wigner crystal phase in RMG that is metallic, driven by a "W"-shaped dispersion in the flat part of the underlying graphene band structure. We demonstrate this effect through calculations of Wigner crystal states in pentalayer RMG, focusing on dilute electrons in the quarter-metal regime relevant to experiment. In a region of the phase diagram we find the Wigner crystal breaks three-fold rotation symmetry, which guides our construction of a t-V model on a triangular lattice as an effective description of the low-energy electronic physics. This construction suggests a surprisingly similar low-energy description of RMG and tWSe2. Broader implications for superconductivity in dilute carrier systems are also discussed.
Related
- Stability, Collective Modes, and Quasiparticle-Phonon Coupling of Metallic Wigner Crystals in Rhombohedral Graphene
- Real-space Visualization of Emergent Electron Crystals in Rhombohedral Graphene
- Emerging network model in a twisted monolayer-rhombohedral graphene
- Spin-polarized Superconductivity and High-Chern Insulators in Twisted Rhombohedral Graphene Family
- Coexistence of Superconductivity and Chern insulators with |C| ≥ 1 in twisted rhombohedral bilayer-trilayer graphene
BibTeX
@misc{deng2026metallic,
title = {{Metallic electron crystals in rhombohedral graphene as a bridge to twisted WSe$_2$}},
author = {Wentai Deng and Chenyuan Li and Naoto Nakatsuji and Fang Xie and Lei Chen and Qimiao Si and Jennifer Cano},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2610.20553},
eprint = {2610.20553},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.20553},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Metallic electron crystals in rhombohedral graphene as a bridge to twisted WSe_2
AU - Wentai Deng
AU - Chenyuan Li
AU - Naoto Nakatsuji
AU - Fang Xie
AU - Lei Chen
AU - Qimiao Si
AU - Jennifer Cano
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/14
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2610.20553
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.20553
AB - Superconducting phases have recently been discovered both in twisted bilayers of transition metal dichalcogenide WSe_2 (tWSe_2) and in rhombohedral multilayer graphene (RMG). While both have generated extensive interest, they appear to be driven by qualitatively different physics. Here, we propose a unified picture in which the superconductivity in RMG arises from a strongly correlated metallic state with a spatial length scale that is compatible with the moiré length scale of tWSe_2. Central to this mechanism is a Wigner crystal phase in RMG that is metallic, driven by a "W"-shaped dispersion in the flat part of the underlying graphene band structure. We demonstrate this effect through calculations of Wigner crystal states in pentalayer RMG, focusing on dilute electrons in the quarter-metal regime relevant to experiment. In a region of the phase diagram we find the Wigner crystal breaks three-fold rotation symmetry, which guides our construction of a t-V model on a triangular lattice as an effective description of the low-energy electronic physics. This construction suggests a surprisingly similar low-energy description of RMG and tWSe_2. Broader implications for superconductivity in dilute carrier systems are also discussed.
ER -