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Moire superlattices in van der Waals (vdW) heterostructures have given rise to a number of emergent electronic phenomena due to the interplay between atomic structure and electron correlations. A lack of a simple way to characterize moire superlattices has impeded progress in the field. In this work we outline a simple, room-temperature, ambient method to visualize real-space moire superlattices with sub-5 nm spatial resolution in a variety of twisted vdW heterostructures including but not limited to conducting graphene, insulating boron nitride and semiconducting transition metal dichalcogenides. Our method utilizes piezoresponse force microscopy, an atomic force microscope modality which locally measures electromechanical surface deformation. We find that all moire superlattices, regardless of whether the constituent layers have inversion symmetry, exhibit a mechanical response to out-of-plane electric fields. This response is closely tied to flexoelectricity wherein electric polarization and electromechanical response is induced through strain gradients present within moire superlattices. Moire superlattices of 2D materials thus represent an interlinked network of polarized domain walls in a non-polar background matrix.
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We theoretically demonstrate that moire phonons at the lowest-energy bands can become chiral. A general symmetry analysis reveals that they originate from stacking configurations leading to an asymmetric interlayer binding energy that breaks the $C_{2z}$ symmetry on the moire length scale. Within elastic theory, we provide a complete classification of van der Waals heterostructures in respect to hosting moire chiral phonons and discuss their emergence in twisted bilayer MoS$_2$ as an example. The formation of the chiral phonons can be qualitatively understood using an effective model, which emphasizes their origin in the energy difference between stacking domains. Since moire chiral phonons are highly tunable, with excitation energies in only a few meV, and moire scale wavelengths, they might find potential applications in phononic twistronic devices.
The moire superlattice of misaligned atomic bilayers paves the way for designing a new class of materials with wide tunability. In this work, we propose a photonic analog of the moire superlattice based on dielectric resonator quasi-atoms. In sharp contrast to van der Waals materials with weak interlayer coupling, we realize the strong coupling regime in a moire superlattice, characterized by cascades of robust flat bands at large twist angles. Surprisingly, we find that these flat bands are characterized by a non-trivial band topology, the origin of which is the moire pattern of the resonator arrangement. The physical manifestation of the flat band topology is a robust one-dimensional conducting channel on the edge, protected by the reflection symmetry of the moire superlattice. By explicitly breaking the underlying reflection symmetry on the boundary terminations, we show that the first-order topological edge modes naturally deform into higher-order topological corner modes. Our work pioneers the physics of the moire superlattice beyond the weakly coupled regime and introduces a designable platform to control photonic topological insulator phases using moire patterns.
Stripe phases, in which the rotational symmetry of charge density is spontaneously broken, occur in many strongly correlated systems with competing interactions. One representative example is the copper-oxide superconductors, where stripe order is thought to be relevant to the mechanism of high-temperature superconductivity. Identifying and studying the stripe phases in conventional strongly correlated systems are, however, challenging due to the complexity and limited tunability of these materials. Here we uncover stripe phases in WSe2/WS2 moire superlattices with continuously gate-tunable charge densities by combining optical anisotropy and electronic compressibility measurements. We find strong electronic anisotropy over a large doping range peaked at 1/2 filling of the moire superlattice. The 1/2-state is incompressible and assigned to a (insulating) stripe crystal phase. It can be continuously melted by thermal fluctuations around 35 K. The domain configuration revealed by wide-field imaging shows a preferential alignment along the high-symmetry axes of the moire superlattice. Away from 1/2 filling, we observe additional stripe crystals at commensurate filling 1/4, 2/5 and 3/5. The anisotropy also extends into the compressible regime of the system at incommensurate fillings, indicating the presence of electronic liquid crystal states. The observed filling-dependent stripe phases agree with the theoretical phase diagram of the extended Hubbard model on a triangular lattice in the flat band limit. Our results demonstrate that two-dimensional semiconductor moire superlattices are a highly tunable platform to study the stripe phases and their interplay with other symmetry breaking ground states.
In graphene moire superlattices, electronic interactions between layers are mostly hidden as band structures get crowded because of folding, making their interpretation cumbersome. Here, the evolution of the electronic band structure as a function of the interlayer rotation angle is studied using Density Functional Theory followed by unfolding bands and then comparing them to their corresponding individual components. We observe interactions at regions not theoretically elucidated so far, where for small interlayer angles, gaps turn into discrete-like states that are evenly spaced in energy. We find that $V_{ppsigma}$ attractive interactions between out-of-plane orbitals from different layers are responsible for the discretization. Furthermore, when the interlayer angle becomes small, these discrete evenly-spaced states have energy differences comparable to graphene phonons. Thus, they might be relevant to explain electron-phonon-assisted effects, which have been experimentally observed in graphene moire superlattices.
In moire crystals formed by stacking van der Waals (vdW) materials, surprisingly diverse correlated electronic phases and optical properties can be realized by a subtle change in the twist angle. Here, we discover that phonon spectra are also renormalized in MoS$_2$ twisted bilayers, adding a new perspective to moire physics. Over a range of small twist angles, the phonon spectra evolve rapidly due to ultra-strong coupling between different phonon modes and atomic reconstructions of the moire pattern. We develop a new low-energy continuum model for phonons that overcomes the outstanding challenge of calculating properties of large moire supercells and successfully captures essential experimental observations. Remarkably, simple optical spectroscopy experiments can provide information on strain and lattice distortions in moire crystals with nanometer-size supercells. The newly developed theory promotes a comprehensive and unified understanding of structural, optical, and electronic properties of moire superlattices.
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