"Semiconductor Lattice Unites Electrons and Magnetic Moments"

Physicists have created a model system by stacking a pair of monolayer semiconductors to study the Kondo lattice problem, which involves a regular lattice of magnetic moments. The researchers simulated the Kondo lattice by rotating the layers at a 180-degree angle, resulting in a moiré lattice pattern that traps individual electrons in tiny slots. The simplified Kondo lattice only needs a battery, and when a voltage is applied just right, the material is ordered into forming a lattice of spins, producing a continuously tunable system. The tunability can induce quantum phase transitions whereby heavy electrons turn into light electrons with the possible emergence of a "strange" metal phase.