Litcius/Paper detail

Perfect Coulomb drag in a dipolar excitonic insulator

Phuong X. Nguyen, Liguo Ma, Raghav Chaturvedi, Kenji Watanabe, Takashi Taniguchi, Jie Shan, Kin Fai Mak

2025Science32 citationsDOI

Abstract

Excitonic insulators (EIs) are a solid-state prototype for bosonic phases of matter that can support charge-neutral exciton currents. However, demonstration of exciton transport in EIs is difficult. In this work, we show that the strong interlayer excitonic correlation at equal electron and hole densities in MoSe 2 /WSe 2 double layers separated by a 2-nanometer barrier yields perfect Coulomb drag under zero magnetic field: A charge current in one layer induces an equal but opposite drag current in the other layer at low temperatures. The drag current ratio remains above 0.9 up to about 20 kelvin. As exciton density increases above the Mott density, the excitons dissociate into an electron-hole plasma abruptly, and only frictional drag is observed. Our experiment may lead to the realization of exciton circuitry and superfluidity.

Topics & Concepts

Condensed matter physicsDragExcitonPhysicsSuperfluidityCoulombElectronDipoleMagnetic fieldQuantum mechanicsMechanicsPhysics of Superconductivity and MagnetismQuantum and electron transport phenomenaCold Atom Physics and Bose-Einstein Condensates