Giant atomic swirl in graphene bilayers with biaxial heterostrain

TL;DR

This paper explores how biaxial heterostrain in bilayer graphene creates giant atomic swirls and spiraling electronic states, revealing new topological features and expanding moiré engineering possibilities.

Contribution

It introduces biaxial heterostrain as a novel parameter for moiré engineering, demonstrating atomic and electronic structures that emerge from this strain in bilayer graphene.

Findings

Giant atomic swirl forms around aligned stacking regions.

Spiraling electronic states are associated with atomic reconstruction.

Topological domain wall solitons decorate the electronic states.

Abstract

The study of moir\'e engineering started with the advent of van der Waals heterostructures in which stacking two-dimensional layers with different lattice constants leads to a moir\'e pattern controlling their electronic properties. The field entered a new era when it was found that adjusting the twist between two graphene layers led to strongly-correlated-electron physics and topological effects associated with atomic relaxation. Twist is now used routinely to adjust the properties of two-dimensional materials. Here, we investigate a new type of moir\'e superlattice in bilayer graphene when one layer is biaxially strained with respect to the other - so-called biaxial heterostrain. Scanning tunneling microscopy measurements uncover spiraling electronic states associated with a novel symmetry-breaking atomic reconstruction at small biaxial heterostrain. Atomistic calculations using experimental parameters as inputs reveal that a giant atomic swirl forms around regions of aligned stacking to reduce the mechanical energy of the bilayer. Tight-binding calculations performed on the relaxed structure show that the observed electronic states decorate spiraling domain wall solitons as required by topology. This study establishes biaxial heterostrain as an important parameter to be harnessed for the next step of moir\'e engineering in van der Waals multilayers.