Remote imprinting of moiré lattices

Jie Gu; Jiacheng Zhu; Patrick Knuppel; Kenji Watanabe; Takashi Taniguchi; Jie Shan; Kin Fai Mak

doi:10.1038/s41563-023-01709-8

Remote imprinting of moiré lattices

Nat Mater. 2024 Feb;23(2):219-223. doi: 10.1038/s41563-023-01709-8. Epub 2024 Jan 4.

Authors

Jie Gu^#^{1

2}, Jiacheng Zhu^#¹, Patrick Knuppel¹, Kenji Watanabe³, Takashi Taniguchi³, Jie Shan^{4

5

6}, Kin Fai Mak^{7

8

9}

Affiliations

¹ School of Applied and Engineering Physics, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA.
² State Key Laboratory of Surface Physics, Department of Physics, Fudan University, Shanghai, China.
³ National Institute for Materials Science, Tsukuba, Japan.
⁴ School of Applied and Engineering Physics, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA. jie.shan@cornell.edu.
⁵ Laboratory of Atomic and Solid State Physics, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA. jie.shan@cornell.edu.
⁶ Kavli Institute at Cornell for Nanoscale Science, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA. jie.shan@cornell.edu.
⁷ School of Applied and Engineering Physics, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA. kinfai.mak@cornell.edu.
⁸ Laboratory of Atomic and Solid State Physics, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA. kinfai.mak@cornell.edu.
⁹ Kavli Institute at Cornell for Nanoscale Science, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA. kinfai.mak@cornell.edu.

^# Contributed equally.

PMID: 38177378
DOI: 10.1038/s41563-023-01709-8

Abstract

Two-dimensional moiré materials are formed by overlaying two layered crystals with small differences in orientation or/and lattice constant, where their direct coupling generates moiré potentials. Moiré materials have emerged as a platform for the discovery of new physics and device concepts, but while moiré materials are highly tunable, once formed, moiré lattices cannot be easily altered. Here we demonstrate the electrostatic imprinting of moiré lattices onto a target monolayer semiconductor. The moiré potential-created by a lattice of electrons that is supported by a Mott insulator state in a remote MoSe₂/WS₂ moiré bilayer-imprints a moiré potential that generates flat bands and correlated insulating states in the target monolayer and can be turned on/off by gate tuning the doping density of the moiré bilayer. Additionally, we studied the interplay between the electrostatic and structural relaxation contributions to moiré imprinting. Our results demonstrate a pathway towards gate control of moiré lattices.