Super-moiré spin textures in twisted two-dimensional antiferromagnets

Nat. Nanotechnol. 21, 359-365 (2026) · DOI: 10.1038/s41565-025-02103-y

License: CC BY 4.0.

Abstract

Stacking two-dimensional layered materials offers a platform to engineer electronic and magnetic states. In general, the resulting states—such as moiré magnetism—have a periodicity at the length scale of the moiré unit cell. Here we study magnetic order in twisted double-bilayer chromium triiodide by means of scanning nitrogen-vacancy microscopy. We observe long-range magnetic textures extending beyond the single moiré unit cell, which we dub a super-moiré magnetic state. At small twist angles, the size of the spontaneous magnetic texture increases with twist angle, opposite to the underlying moiré wavelength. The spin-texture size reaches a maximum of about 300 nm in 1.1° twisted devices, an order of magnitude larger than the underlying moiré wavelength, and vanishes at twist angles above 2°. The obtained magnetic field maps suggest the formation of antiferromagnetic Néel-type skyrmions spanning multiple moiré cells. The twist-angle-dependent study, combined with large-scale atomistic Monte Carlo simulations, suggests that the magnetic competition between the Dzyaloshinskii–Moriya interaction, magnetic anisotropy and exchange interactions—which all depend on the relative rotation of the layers—produces the topological textures that emerge in the super-moiré spin order.

Figures

18 panels with data across 3 figures. Each panel page shows the plot, its columns and its files; each data.csv begins with a header naming the paper, the panel, the source, the license and the provenance route.

Fig. 1

The underlying data is not available. The figure is shown in the paper PDF.

Fig. 2

• panel (a): Measured stray field map (mT) of the $0.5^\circ$ sample against position $x$, $y$ (nm): the field the printed magnetization map $M_z$ was reconstructed from, not $M_z$ itself. data.csv
• panel (b): Measured stray field map (mT) of the $1.1^\circ$ sample against position $x$, $y$ (nm): the field the printed magnetization map $M_z$ was reconstructed from, not $M_z$ itself. data.csv
• panel (c): Domain-wall line cuts of $M_z$ ($\mu_B$ nm$^{-2}$) against position (nm) for the $0.5^\circ$ (black dots) and $1.1^\circ$ (red dots) samples, each with its hyperbolic tangent fit (solid line), and the fitted domain wall of a twisted bilayer as a reference (Ref, grey dashed line). data.csv
• panel (d): Stray field map (mT) of the selected ferromagnetic area of the $1.1^\circ$ sample (the dashed rectangle in (b)) after a smooth polynomial background subtraction, against position $x$, $y$ (nm). The print shows it with a scale bar instead of axes. data.csv
• panel (e): Normalized 2D autocorrelation (AC) of the field map in (d) against the lags $\Delta x$, $\Delta y$ (nm). The dashed lattice vectors and their $a/a_M$ labels drawn over the print are not hosted. data.csv

Fig. 3

• panel (a): Stray field map (mT) of the $0.5^\circ$ sample after zero-field cooldown against position $x$, $y$ (nm). The dashed rectangle marking the autocorrelation area in the print is not drawn. data.csv
• panel (b): Normalized 2D autocorrelation (AC) of the selected area in (a) against the lags $\Delta x$, $\Delta y$ (nm). The dashed red line drawn over the print is not hosted. data.csv
• panel (c): Stray field map (mT) of the same area as (a) after 500 mT field cooldown, against position $x$, $y$ (nm). The panel opens on the printed window; the scan continues to the right beyond it. data.csv
• panel (d): Normalized 2D autocorrelation (AC) of the selected area in (c) against the lags $\Delta x$, $\Delta y$ (nm). The lattice vectors and $a/a_M$ labels drawn over the print are not hosted. data.csv
• panel (e): Stray field map (mT) of the $1.1^\circ$ sample after 500 mT field cooling against position $x$, $y$ (nm), hosted for the selected area only (the dashed rectangle of the print); the rest of the printed map is not hosted. data.csv
• panel (f): Normalized 2D autocorrelation (AC) of the selected area in (e) against the lags $\Delta x$, $\Delta y$ (nm). The lattice vectors and $a/a_M$ labels drawn over the print are not hosted. data.csv

Fig. 4

• panel (a): Stray field map (mT) of a $1.1^\circ$ sample after 500 mT field cooldown, taken at 4 K, against position $x$, $y$ (nm). The dashed rectangle marking the autocorrelation area in the print is not drawn. data.csv
• panel (b): Normalized 2D autocorrelation (AC) of the selected area in (a) at 4.2 K against the lags $\Delta x$, $\Delta y$ (nm). data.csv
• panel (c): Normalized 2D autocorrelation (AC) of the selected area in (a) at 25 K against the lags $\Delta x$, $\Delta y$ (nm). data.csv
• panel (d): Normalized 2D autocorrelation (AC) of the selected area in (a) at 35 K against the lags $\Delta x$, $\Delta y$ (nm). The lattice vectors and $a/a_M$ labels drawn over the print are not hosted. data.csv
• panel (f): Field component $B_x$ (stray field, mT) reconstructed from a fine scan of a single dot in (a), against position $x$, $y$ (nm). data.csv
• panel (g): Field component $B_y$ (stray field, mT) reconstructed from a fine scan of a single dot in (a), against position $x$, $y$ (nm). data.csv
• panel (h): Field component $B_z$ (stray field, mT) reconstructed from a fine scan of a single dot in (a), against position $x$, $y$ (nm). The printed size marker is not hosted. data.csv

Cite

King Cho Wong et al. (18 authors). Super-moiré spin textures in twisted two-dimensional antiferromagnets. Nat. Nanotechnol. 21, 359-365 (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41565-025-02103-y

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