Probing Moiré Excitons in MoSe<sub>2</sub>/WSe<sub>2</sub> Heterobilayers by Combined Micro-photoluminescence and Lateral Force Microscopy.

Caussou, L; Moutaabbid, H; Bernard, M; Margaillan, F; Taniguchi, T; Watanabe, K; Lagoin, C; Dubin, F et al. · Nano Lett · 2026

basic_science · Level V

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Abstract

We study interlayer excitons in MoSe<sub>2</sub>/WSe<sub>2</sub> heterobilayers by combining lateral force microscopy and micro-photoluminescence spectroscopy. This allows us to correlate the spatial profile of the moiré superlattice with the distribution of optically active states accessible to interlayer excitons. In heterostructures where a twist angle of a few degrees is imposed between the MoSe<sub>2</sub> and WSe<sub>2</sub> crystallographic axes, we show that a continuous moiré lattice is realized across areas close to the optical diffraction limit. In such regions, the photoluminescence reduces to a few narrow-band lines only, energetically distributed consistently with the geometry of the moiré lattice. This correlation reveals that interlayer excitons explore a controlled periodic confinement, paving the way toward implementations of Bose-Hubbard models.