Experimental realisation of Dual Periodicity Moir\'e Superlattice in a MoSe$_2$/WSe$_2$ Heterobilayer

TL;DR

This paper provides experimental evidence of dual periodicity moiré superlattices in a twisted MoSe₂/WSe₂ heterobilayer using resonance Raman spectroscopy, revealing new opportunities for emergent phenomena and optical characterization methods.

Contribution

First experimental demonstration of dual periodicity moiré structures in a bilayer heterostructure using resonance Raman spectroscopy.

Findings

Detection of zone-folded phonon modes indicating dual periodicity

Evidence of a dual moiré superlattice in MoSe₂/WSe₂ heterobilayer

Opens new avenues for studying emergent phenomena in van der Waals heterostructures

Abstract

Moir\'e structures in van der Waals heterostructures lead to emergent phenomena including superconductivity in twisted bilayer graphene and optically accessible strongly-correlated electron states in transition metal dichalcogenide heterobilayers. Dual periodicity moir\'e structures (DPMS) formed in layered structures with more than two layers have been shown to lead to ferromagnetism and multiple secondary Dirac points in TBG. Whilst in principle it is possible to obtain DPMS in bilayers there has not been clear experimental evidence of this yet. In this paper we present signatures of DPMS in a twisted MoSe$_2$/WSe$_2$ bilayer revealed by resonance Raman spectroscopy. We observed zone-folded acoustic and optical phonon modes with a wavevector twice of the moir\'e wavevector, evidence of a dual periodicity moir\'e heterostructure. These results simultaneously open up opportunities for new emergent phenomena and an optical method for characterising DPMS in a wide range of van der Waals heterostructures.