Electrons Surf Phason Waves in Moiré Bilayers.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 37235740.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1021/acs.nanolett.3c00490 and PMC identifier 10273461.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
We investigate the effect of thermal fluctuations on the atomic and electronic structure of a twisted MoSe<sub>2</sub>/WSe<sub>2</sub> heterobilayer using a combination of classical molecular dynamics and <i>ab initio</i> density functional theory calculations. Our calculations reveal that thermally excited phason modes give rise to an almost rigid motion of the moiré lattice. Electrons and holes in low-energy states are localized in specific stacking regions of the moiré unit cell and follow the thermal motion of these regions. In other words, charge carriers surf phason waves that are excited at finite temperatures. We also show that such surfing survives in the presence of a substrate and frozen potential. This effect has potential implications for the design of charge and exciton transport devices based on moiré materials.