Probing quantum spin liquids with a quantum twisting microscope

The experimental characterization of quantum spin liquids poses significant challenges due to the absence of long-range magnetic order, even at absolute zero temperature. The identification of these states of matter often relies on the analysis of their excitations. In this paper, we propose a method for detecting the signatures of the fractionalized excitations in quantum spin liquids using a tunneling spectroscopy setup. Inspired by the recent development of the quantum twisting microscope, we consider a planar tunneling junction, in which a candidate quantum spin liquid material is placed between two graphene layers. By tuning the relative twist angle and voltage bias between the leads, we can extract the dynamical spin structure factor of the tunneling barrier with momentum and energy resolution. Our proposal presents a promising tool for experimentally characterizing quantum spin liquids in two-dimensional materials.Comment: 18 pages, 3 figure

Collective Wigner crystal tunneling in carbon nanotubes

The collective tunneling of a a Wigner necklace - a crystalline state of a small number of strongly interacting electrons confined to a suspended nanotube and subject to a double well potential - is theoretically analyzed and compared with experiments in [Shapir $\textit{et al.}$, Science $\textbf {364}$, 870 (2019)]. Density Matrix Renormalization Group computations, exact diagonalization, and instanton theory provide a consistent description of this very strongly interacting system, and show good agreement with experiments. Experimentally extracted and theoretically computed tunneling amplitudes exhibit a scaling collapse. Collective quantum fluctuations renormalize the tunneling, and substantially enhance it as the number of electrons increases.Comment: 10 pages, 9 figure

The Quantum Twisting Microscope

The invention of scanning probe microscopy has revolutionized the way electronic phenomena are visualized. While present-day probes can access a variety of electronic properties at a single location in space, a scanning microscope that can directly probe the quantum mechanical existence of an electron at multiple locations would provide direct access to key quantum properties of electronic systems, so far unreachable. Here, we demonstrate a conceptually new type of scanning probe microscope - the Quantum Twisting Microscope (QTM) - capable of performing local interference experiments at its tip. The QTM is based on a unique van-der-Waals tip, allowing the creation of pristine 2D junctions, which provide a multitude of coherently-interfering paths for an electron to tunnel into a sample. With the addition of a continuously scanned twist angle between the tip and sample, this microscope probes electrons in momentum space similar to the way a scanning tunneling microscope probes electrons in real space. Through a series of experiments, we demonstrate room temperature quantum coherence at the tip, study the twist angle evolution of twisted bilayer graphene, directly image the energy bands of monolayer and twisted bilayer graphene, and finally, apply large local pressures while visualizing the evolution of the flat energy bands of the latter. The QTM opens the way for novel classes of experiments on quantum materials