Published May 15, 2025 | Version Supplemental material
Journal Article Open

Twist-programmable superconductivity in spin–orbit-coupled bilayer graphene

  • 1. ROR icon California Institute of Technology
  • 2. ROR icon National High Magnetic Field Laboratory
  • 3. ROR icon Florida State University
  • 4. ROR icon National Institute for Materials Science
  • 5. ROR icon Freie Universität Berlin
  • 6. ROR icon Weizmann Institute of Science

Abstract

The relative twist angle between layers of near-lattice-matched van der Waals materials is critical for the emergent phenomena associated with moiré flat bands. However, the concept of angle rotation control is not exclusive to moiré superlattices in which electrons directly experience a twist-angle-dependent periodic potential. Instead, it can also be used to induce programmable symmetry-breaking perturbations with the goal of stabilizing desired correlated states. Here we experimentally demonstrate 'moiréless' twist-tuning of superconductivity together with other correlated orders in Bernal bilayer graphene proximitized by tungsten diselenide. The precise alignment between the two materials systematically controls the strength of induced Ising spin–orbit coupling (SOC), profoundly altering the phase diagram. As Ising SOC is increased, superconductivity onsets at a higher displacement field and features a higher critical temperature, reaching up to 0.5 K. Within the main superconducting dome and in the strong Ising SOC limit, we find an unusual phase transition characterized by a nematic redistribution of holes among trigonally warped Fermi pockets and enhanced resilience to in-plane magnetic fields. The superconducting behaviour is theoretically compatible with the prominent role of interband interactions between symmetry-breaking Fermi pockets. Moreover, we identify two additional superconducting regions, one of which descends from an inter-valley coherent normal state and shows a Pauli-limit violation ratio exceeding 40, among the highest for all known superconductors. Our results provide insights into ultraclean graphene superconductors and underscore the potential of utilizing moiréless-twist engineering across a wide range of van der Waals heterostructures.

Copyright and License

© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited 2025.

Acknowledgement

We thank J. Alicea, É. Lantagne-Hurtubise, Z. Dong, A. Thomson, D. V. Chichinadze, A. Young and E. Berg for discussions. This work has been primarily supported by the Office of Naval Research (grant number N142112635). S.N.-P. and D.H. acknowledge the support of the Institute for Quantum Information and Matter, an NSF Physics Frontiers Center (PHY-2317110). Part of the measurements were supported by the Moore foundation (award 12967). We gratefully acknowledge the critical support and infrastructure provided for this work by The Kavli Nanoscience Institute at Caltech. G.S. acknowledges support from the Walter Burke Institute for Theoretical Physics at Caltech, and from the Yad Hanadiv Foundation through the Rothschild fellowship. H.M. and C.L. were supported by start-up funds from Florida State University and the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory. The National High Magnetic Field Laboratory is supported by the National Science Foundation through NSF/DMR-2128556 and the State of Florida. Y.O. and F.v.O. acknowledge suppport by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft through CRC 183 (project C02). F.v.O was further supported by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft through a joint ANR-DFG project (TWISTGRAPH).

Data Availability

The data shown in the main figures are available from the CaltechDATA (https://doi.org/10.22002/pcm1e-qe565). Other data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding authors upon reasonable request.

Code Availability

The code that supports the findings of this study is available from the corresponding authors upon reasonable request.

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Related works

Describes
Journal Article: https://rdcu.be/ezoe3 (ReadCube)
40335702 (PMID)
Is new version of
Discussion Paper: arXiv:2408.10335 (arXiv)
Is supplemented by
Supplemental Material: https://static-content.springer.com/esm/art%3A10.1038%2Fs41586-025-08959-3/MediaObjects/41586_2025_8959_MOESM1_ESM.pdf (URL)
Dataset: 10.22002/pcm1e-qe565 (DOI)

Funding

Office of Naval Research
N142112635
National Science Foundation
PHY-2317110
Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation
12967
Weizmann Institute of Science
Florida State University
National Science Foundation
DMR-2128556
State of Florida
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
CRC 183
Agence Nationale de la Recherche
TWISTGRAPH

Dates

Accepted
2025-04-01
Available
2025-05-07
Published

Caltech Custom Metadata

Caltech groups
Institute for Quantum Information and Matter, Kavli Nanoscience Institute, Walter Burke Institute for Theoretical Physics, Division of Engineering and Applied Science (EAS), Division of Physics, Mathematics and Astronomy (PMA)
Publication Status
Published