Twisted epitaxy of gold nanodisks grown between twisted substrate layers of molybdenum disulfide

We expand the concept of epitaxy to a regime of "twisted epitaxy" with the epilayer crystal orientation between two substrates influenced by their relative orientation. We annealed nanometer-thick gold (Au) nanoparticles between two substrates of exfoliated hexagonal molybdenum disulfide (MoS₂) with varying orientation of their basal planes with a mutual twist angle ranging from 0° to 60°. Transmission electron microscopy studies show that Au aligns midway between the top and bottom MoS₂ when the twist angle of the bilayer is small (<~7°). For larger twist angles, Au has only a small misorientation with the bottom MoS₂ that varies approximately sinusoidally with twist angle of the bilayer MoS₂. Four-dimensional scanning transmission electron microscopy analysis further reveals a periodic strain variation (<|±0.5%|) in the Au nanodisks associated with the twisted epitaxy, consistent with the Moiré registry of the two MoS₂ twisted layers.