Atomic Resolution Imaging of Highly Air-Sensitive Monolayer and Twisted-Bilayer WTe<sub>2</sub>.
basic_science · Level V
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- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 37477415.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1021/acs.nanolett.3c01175.
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Abstract
Bulk <i>Td</i>-WTe<sub>2</sub> is a semimetal, while its monolayer counterpart is a two-dimensional (2D) topological insulator. Recently, electronic transport resembling a Luttinger liquid state was found in twisted-bilayer WTe<sub>2</sub> (tWTe<sub>2</sub>) with a twist angle of ∼5°. Despite the strong interest in 2D WTe<sub>2</sub> systems, little experimental information is available about their intrinsic microstructure, leaving obstacles in modeling their physical properties. The monolayer, and consequently tWTe<sub>2</sub>, are highly air-sensitive, and therefore, probing their atomic structures is difficult. In this study, we develop a robust method for atomic-resolution visualization of monolayers and tWTe<sub>2</sub> obtained through mechanical exfoliation and fabrication. We confirm the high crystalline quality of mechanically exfoliated WTe<sub>2</sub> samples and observe that tWTe<sub>2</sub> with twist angles of ∼5 and ∼2° retains its pristine moiré structure without substantial deformations or reconstructions. The results provide a structural foundation for future electronic modeling of monolayer and tWTe<sub>2</sub> moiré lattices.