Continuous Mott transition in semiconductor moiré superlattices

The evolution of a Landau Fermi liquid into a non-magnetic Mott insulator with increasing electronic interactions is one of the most puzzling quantum phase transitions in physics 1 – 6 . The vicinity of the transition is believed to host exotic states of matter such as quantum spin liquids 4 – 7 , exciton condensates 8 and unconventional superconductivity 1 . Semiconductor moiré materials realize a highly controllable Hubbard model simulator on a triangular lattice 9 – 22 , providing a unique opportunity to drive a metal–insulator transition (MIT) via continuous tuning of the electronic interactions. Here, by electrically tuning the effective interaction strength in MoTe 2 /WSe 2 moiré superlattices, we observe a continuous MIT at a fixed filling of one electron per unit cell. The existence of quantum criticality is supported by the scaling collapse of the resistance, a continuously vanishing charge gap as the critical point is approached from the insulating side, and a diverging quasiparticle effective mass from the metallic side. We also observe a smooth evolution of the magnetic susceptibility across the MIT and no evidence of long-range magnetic order down to ~5% of the Curie–Weiss temperature. This signals an abundance of low-energy spinful excitations on the insulating side that is further corroborated by the Pomeranchuk effect observed on the metallic side. Our results are consistent with the universal critical theory of a continuous Mott transition in two dimensions 4 , 23 .