Atomic Resolution Imaging of Highly Air-Sensitive Monolayer and Twisted-Bilayer WTe₂

Bulk Td-WTe₂ 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 WTe₂ (tWTe₂) with a twist angle of ∼5°. Despite the strong interest in 2D WTe₂ systems, little experimental information is available about their intrinsic microstructure, leaving obstacles in modeling their physical properties. The monolayer, and consequently tWTe₂, 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 tWTe₂ obtained through mechanical exfoliation and fabrication. We confirm the high crystalline quality of mechanically exfoliated WTe₂ samples and observe that tWTe₂ 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 tWTe₂ moiré lattices.