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Moiré-Induced Magnetoelectricity in Twisted Bilayer NiI2

Haiyan Zhu1,*, Hongyu Yu1,*, Weiqin Zhu1, Guoliang Yu1, Changsong Xu1,2,†, and Hongjun Xiang1,‡

  • 1Key Laboratory of Computational Physical Sciences (Ministry of Education), Institute of Computational Physical Sciences, State Key Laboratory of Surface Physics, and Department of Physics, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China
  • 2Hefei National Laboratory, Hefei 230088, China

  • *These authors contributed equally to this work.
  • †Contact author: csxu@fudan.edu.cn
  • ‡Contact author: hxiang@fudan.edu.cn

Phys. Rev. Lett. 135, 196701 – Published 3 November, 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/p6n8-n1rx

Abstract

Twisted magnetic van der Waals materials offer a promising route for multiferroic engineering, yet modeling large-scale moiré superlattices remains challenging. Leveraging a newly developed SpinGNN++ framework that effectively handles spin-lattice coupled systems, we develop a comprehensive interatomic machine learning potential and apply it to twisted bilayer NiI2. Structural relaxation introduces moiré-periodic “bumps” that modulate the interlayer spacing by about 0.55 Å and in-plane ionic shifts up to 0.48 Å. Concurrently, our machine learning potential, which faithfully captures all key spin interactions, produces reliable magnetic configurations; combined with the more accurate generalized Katsura-Nagaosa-Balatsky mechanism, it delivers precise spin-driven polarization. For twist angles 1.89°≤θ≤2.45°, both mechanisms become prominent, yielding rich polarization textures that combine ionic out-of-plane dipoles with purely electronic in-plane domains. In the rigid (unrelaxed) bilayer, skyrmions are absent; lattice relaxation is thus essential for generating polar-magnetic topologies. In contrast, near θ≈60°, stacking-dependent ferroelectric displacements dominate, giving rise to polar meron-antimeron networks. These results reveal cooperative ionic and spin-driven ferroelectricity in twisted bilayer NiI2, positioning twisted van der Waals magnets as adaptable platforms for tunable multiferroic devices.

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