Thermodynamic evidence of fractional Chern insulator in moiré MoTe2

Chern insulators, which are the lattice analogues of the quantum Hall states, can potentially manifest high-temperature topological orders at zero magnetic field to enable next-generation topological quantum devices1–3. Until now, integer Chern insulators have been experimentally demonstrated in several systems at zero magnetic field3–8, whereas fractional Chern insulators have been reported in only graphene-based systems under a finite magnetic field9,10. The emergence of semiconductor moiré materials11, which support tunable topological flat bands12,13, provides an opportunity to realize fractional Chern insulators13–16. Here we report thermodynamic evidence of both integer and fractional Chern insulators at zero magnetic field in small-angle twisted bilayer MoTe2 by combining the local electronic compressibility and magneto-optical measurements. At hole filling factor ν = 1 and 2/3, the system is incompressible and spontaneously breaks time-reversal symmetry. We show that they are integer and fractional Chern insulators, respectively, from the dispersion of the state in the filling factor with an applied magnetic field. We further demonstrate electric-field-tuned topological phase transitions involving the Chern insulators. Our findings pave the way for the demonstration of quantized fractional Hall conductance and anyonic excitation and braiding17 in semiconductor moiré materials.