When you stack and slightly rotate two images with repeating shapes, like squares or triangles, you get a moiré pattern: a larger, wavelike design that seems to ripple across the surface. It’s a striking optical effect created from simple repetition and alignment.
A similar phenomenon happens at the nanoscale when scientists stack ultra-thin layers of materials called transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs), which are just atoms thick. This stacking creates what’s known as a moiré potential, a repeating energy landscape with peaks and valleys between the layers. These moiré patterns can give rise to unusual electronic and optical behaviors.
Until recently, moiré potentials were thought to be fixed in place. But researchers at the Molecular Foundry at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory discovered something surprising: in stacked TMDs, the moiré potential isn’t static – it moves, even at extremely low temperatures.
Their discovery contributes to foundational knowledge in materials science. It also holds promise for advancing the stability of quantum technologies, as controlling moiré potentials could help mitigate decoherence in qubits and sensors. Decoherence occurs when interference causes the quantum state and its information to be lost. The researchers published their findings in ACS Nano. The research is part of broader efforts at Berkeley Lab to advance quantum information systems by working across the quantum research ecosystem, from theory to application, to fabricate and test quantum-based devices and develop software and algorithms.
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