Interferences of electrostatic moir\'e potentials and bichromatic superlattices of electrons and excitons in transition metal dichalcogenides

TL;DR

This paper uncovers the electrostatic origin of moiré potentials in TMD heterostructures and demonstrates how to engineer tunable multi-chromatic superlattices for advanced quantum simulations.

Contribution

It reveals the electrostatic basis of moiré potentials and introduces methods to create tunable bichromatic superlattices in TMD multilayers.

Findings

Electrostatic charge transfer causes moiré potential landscapes.

Tunable multi-chromatic superlattices can be engineered via heterointerface interference.

Bichromatic moiré potentials enable control over valley electrons, holes, and interlayer trions.

Abstract

Recent experimental progresses have demonstrated the great potential of electronic and excitonic moir\'e superlattices in transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) for quantum many-body simulations and quantum optics applications. Here we reveal that the moir\'e potential landscapes in the TMDs heterostructures have an electrostatic origin from the spontaneous charge transfer across the heterointerfaces dependent on the atomic registry. This allows engineering tunable multi-chromatic superlattices through the interference of moir\'e potentials from independently configurable heterointerfaces in multilayers. We show examples of bichromatic moir\'e potentials for valley electrons, holes, and interlayer trions in MX2/M'X'2/MX2 trilayers, which can be strain switched from multi-orbital periodic superlattices to quasi-periodic disordered landscape. The trilayer moir\'e also hosts two independently configurable triangular superlattices of neutral excitons with opposite electric dipoles. These findings greatly enrich the versatility and controllability of TMDs moir\'e as a quantum simulation platform.