Building crystals from moiré interfaces

When similar 2D materials are stacked on top of one another with slight misalignment, a moiré pattern creates periodic variations in the interlayer electronic coupling. The variations can localize electronic states, promoting non-linear effects and strongly correlated phases. In this talk the microscopic origins of electronic moiré potentials will be examined alongside the wide ranging possibilities for the electronic states they produce. This includes expanding beyond two layer systems, combining multiple distinct materials, and tuning the electronic and atomic structure of moire interfaces with external perturbations. Controlling moiré patterns with strain engineering emerges as a vital step in the development of these artificial crystals, which are already probing long-standing questions in condensed matter physics and could serve as ideal platforms for quantum or topological electronics.