Higher Order Topological Defects in a Moiré Lattice

AbstractTopological defects are ubiquitous, they manifest in a wide variety of systems such as liquid crystals, magnets or superconductors. The recent quest for non‐abelian anyons in condensed matter physics stimulates the interest for topological defects since they can be hosted in vortices in quantum magnets or topological superconductors. In addition to these vortex defects, this study proposes to investigate edge dislocations in 2D magnets as new building blocks for topological physics since they can be described as vortices in the structural phase field. It demonstrates the existence of higher order topological dislocations within the higher order moiré pattern of the van der Waals 2D magnet CrCl3 deposited on Au(111). Surprisingly, these higher order dislocations arise from ordinary simple edge dislocations in the atomic lattice of CrCl3. This study provide a theoretical framework explaining the higher order dislocations as vortices with a winding Chern number of 2. It is expected that these original defects can stabilize some anyons either in a 2D quantum magnet or within a 2D superconductor coupled to it.